


Yuki

by MalikRuttingAssassinAss



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Bondage, Drawing, M/M, Monogamy, Polyamory, Sousuke gets over his issues with Nanase, Work In Progress, big brother Sousuke, body art, gagging, little brother Yuki, parental guardian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:56:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalikRuttingAssassinAss/pseuds/MalikRuttingAssassinAss
Summary: "When Sousuke hit 17, right at the tail end of his final year of high school, a sheepish phone call from his mother had spat in the face of the theory he’d forever be a lone child. Something about the contraceptive pill and antibiotics for her tonsillitis paired with a Valentine’s day getaway that Sousuke refused to even think about – not for a fucking second. His dad, however, had been shocked.He’d been sterilised 10 years back."Sousuke takes custody of his 1 year old half-brother and brings him home to Iwatobi after the scandalous conclusion to his parents' marriage.





	1. Welcome to Iwatobi.

His mother had been seventeen years old when he was born. _Seventeen._ And ever since, he’d been a lone child considering the very experience of having Sousuke at seventeen had severely scarred his mother’s once young, budding mind. Across the dining table, she would recount the trauma of birthing Sousuke in front of a live audience of friends and family to spook Sousuke’s cousins once and twice removed into a life of complete and utter abstinence. When the alcohol is flowing, the descriptions of just _what_ Sousuke did to his mother during the birthing process become _incredibly_ detailed, and he’s unsure after the hundredth recantation of the tale if she’s overdramatising any of it. It’s _too_ consistent.  
   
For _years_ the very suggestion that his parents would have more children was met with haughty laughter from his mother, and a nervous twitch from his father followed by the occasional middle finger, depending on the type of company. His parents were fairly laid back about most things, but more kids? They’d made a large enough mistake with Sousuke, why add more fuel to the flames?  
   
When Sousuke hit 17, however, right at the tail end of his final year of high school, a sheepish phone call from his mother had spat in the face of the theory he’d forever be a lone child. Something about the contraceptive pill and antibiotics for her tonsillitis and a Valentine’s day getaway that Sousuke refused to even think about – not for a _fucking second._ His dad, however, had been shocked.  
   
He’d been sterilised 10 years back.  
   
Sousuke had polished off his high school days watching his parents’ supposedly perfect marriage crumble under the weight of an unwanted pregnancy with their _gardener’s_ love child like it was one of those shitty chick-flick movies Rin was into. Sousuke had to laugh.  
   
Of course, he had to, otherwise he’d sprawl in the path of an oncoming train and welcome the sweet relief.  
   
His mother had disappeared with her boy-toy not long after the birth of his little brother, announcing she was a born-again wild-child seeking the thrill of her youth she’d lost being a mother to Sousuke, and she wouldn’t let another child stand in her way. Sousuke wanted to believe she wasn’t as selfish as her letter to him had made her sound, but he’d struggled to find any forgiveness.  
   
His father, whilst mentally and physically floored by his ex-wife’s incredible display of egoism and disregard for her own offspring, had been all-too-happy to wave her out the door and change the locks behind her. The rest of the family had wondered if Sousuke’s parents had always secretly hated each other, but the very idea had Sousuke chuckling as a _secret_ it was not.  
   
After graduating high school, he’d gone straight into a coaching assistant and lifeguard job at the ITSC Returns, and had stayed there even after his baby brother had been born, his mother had run off with another man, and his father had been dumped with a child that wasn’t even _his_.  
   
A year passed. He turned 18 quietly, shared a skype-call with Rin chasing his dreams in Australia, clinked a can of cola against the webcam to toast Rin’s bottle of beer – damn drinking age differences – and gotten an early night for work the next day. He’d been invited for a drink with Coach Sasabe, and the Iwatobi crew returning from University in Tokyo for the summer, but he’d refused and hauled up in his tiny apartment in the cluttering of houses on the hill overlooking the ocean. He had heard Nanase Haruka and Tachibana Makoto lived close-by, but didn’t everyone in this tiny town?  
   
A week past his 18th birthday, a phone number from Tokyo his phone didn’t recognise popped up on his screen as he was enjoying his lunch from the audience seating by the pool – the pungent stench of chlorine in the air simply improved the taste of his bento, considering it was pretty tasteless otherwise.  
   
He’d answered the call then and there, thinking nothing of it – not thinking of much of anything, really, whilst surrounded by the public enjoying the pool before the middle schoolers took over for an hour of swimming practice.  
   
In hindsight, there was an empty staffroom for him to enjoy his lunch, and phone call, in peace, and looking back, he should’ve taken advantage of that, since the other person on the line didn’t warn him before dropping one hell of a nuke.  
   
His father had dumped his wife’s lovechild on Sousuke’s grandmother, sold the business, and moved to _Wales_ to represent a _fucking winery_ in the valleys. Sousuke didn’t even know where the fuck Wales was, but enough to know it was in Europe at least. Sousuke’s grandmother had taken the phone from her lawyer and, sobbing, begged him to take Yuki, his barely one-year-old brother, into his care.  
   
His grandmother, though scraping 65-years-old, was a frail woman since losing her husband and suffering a heart attack a couple years back, so it was unfair on her to make her take care of a baby who couldn’t even communicate yet – let alone understand the world around him.  
   
And _that_ was the story of how he came to be the parental guardian of a one-year-old boy at the age of 18, just like his parents had been before.  
   
Not that anyone around him necessarily believed his story.  
   
Yuki is a bright, lively, yet quiet baby. He’d warmed up to Sousuke on the train journey back to Iwatobi from Tokyo, and hadn’t cried for a second until they’d gotten home and Sousuke had slammed the front door behind him a bit too hard, spooking him from his slumber.  
   
Sousuke glances over to Yuki on the play mat in front of the TV, babbling incoherently to himself as he slaps his toy cars together. It’s been two days since Yuki came to live with him, and whilst Yuki is an incredibly well-behaved child, he is a bit of a handful since he doesn’t typically cry at things _normal_ babies do.  
   
Dirty diaper? Nah, it’s all good, apparently Yuki likes to fester in his faeces.  
   
Hungry? He’ll try latching onto any prominent chest muscles he can find – Sousuke’s mostly – until a bottle is served.  
   
Grumpy? Bored? Yuki never reaches that stage – he entertains himself or will go find something of interest regardless of how close to heart failure Sousuke gets to when he can’t find Yuki after stepping out the room for a second.  
   
He knows good babies tend to become the worst teenagers, but he can _handle_ teenagers – if he can handle Rin at his worst, he can handle Yuki.  
   
Sousuke wonders, briefly, if the first year of his life spent with his “step-dad” had a hand in making him this relaxed and quiet – or if he was born with this disposition. Was Sousuke himself like this as a child?  
   
A short burst of burbles from Yuki draws him away from his thoughts.  
   
“Hey,” He climbs down onto the floor of his tiny apartment to kneel next to his brother and offers the best smile in his arsenal, one that makes his squirt of a sibling beam right back and butt-shuffle towards him. “It’s no good being stuck inside all day, right?”  
   
Yuki stares at him attentively, sucking his bottom lip in as if in great thought.  
   
“Let’s go for a walk.” The squirt is already pulling himself up to Sousuke’s chest, but it doesn’t look like he’s about to latch his sharp little baby teeth onto his nipple this time, so he hauls him up against his shoulder and gets to his feet.  
   
“It’s probably a good idea I introduce you to Iwatobi, anyway. There’s not many babies around here to play with since everyone’s old as hell, but you’ll fit in just fine. You’ll like the ocean.” Sousuke knows Yuki doesn’t understand him, but is probably convinced by the tone of his voice more than anything.  
   
He exchanges his house slippers for running shoes and puts Yuki down long enough to strap him in the baby back carrier and ease it onto his shoulders to clip into place around his waist. His shoulder gives a twinge in disapproval – but it quickly fades as he steps out of his apartment and hurries down the steps to the path below.  
   
“Yuki, pay attention, okay?” He calls back to his brother, who is busily playing with the label of Sousuke’s t-shirt. The tiny fingers still, as if Yuki really is listening closely, but has probably just seen a bird or a cat, or something.  
   
“Alright, Yuki, Tokyo is nice in _some_ places, but it’s nothing like this.” Sousuke feels Yuki’s feet swinging against his sides as he merrily enjoys the view. “It might just be the two of us, but we’re a family, right?”  
   
Yuki makes a soft burble against his shoulder before taking some of the fabric of Sousuke’s t-shirt into his mouth and saturating it in spit. Sousuke doesn’t mind.  
   
“I’ll take you by the pool so you can see where I work-” He keeps chatting to Yuki like the kid’s gonna spout off a response even remotely translatable, like a conversation will even happen between them – but he enjoys it. He knows any response Yuki may have will be honest little burbles or a hand clapping against the nape of his neck.  
   
He makes his way down the concrete steps, one flight at a time. His apartment building sits quite high up on the hill looking over Iwatobi, at the top of dozens of streets connected by these concrete staircases. By the time he’s reached the bottom, the ages of the houses around him are heading into the three digits, and their price tags aren’t anything he can comprehend compared to his meagre apartment further up the hill.  
   
Iwatobi hasn’t been his home for his entire life, and sometimes it’s easy to forget given the complete sense of ease he feels as he gazes further down the winding streets and steps, every path around him leading towards the ocean glistening like fractured crystal against a pale sand shoreline.  
   
Kyoto, Tokyo, has nothing on this place, Sousuke is sure of that. And whilst he was born and raised in Tokyo, there’s something about Iwatobi, a presence in the air that makes Sousuke feel like he’s been a citizen of this small town forever. It’s a relief to know it won’t simply be a feeling for Yuki since he has no intentions on leaving this place – a place so perfect for raising families it’s no wonder kids attending colleges in the big cities flee back to their family homes here at half the chance.  
   
Sousuke’s shoes scrape against the ground as he comes to a halt in a nestling of new and old houses. A gentle waft of sea breeze carries the pungent stench of oily fish from one of the houses in the vicinity, the scent of lunch being prepared causing Sousuke’s stomach to tighten, to remind him whilst Sousuke remembered to feed Yuki, he’d skipped his own meal by accident.  
   
He’ll make a trip to the store to pick up more supplies for Yuki and grab something to eat whilst he’s in there, he tells himself.  
   
The sheer drop of houses graduating towards the beige sand beach reveals the small town of Iwatobi in its entirety. Clusters of mismatched houses crowded around homely shrines and memorial stones to those lost to storms in older times. The rolling hills split by stone pathways and aging rail tracks slowly corroding in the sea salt air. Sousuke can see from here the high visibility jackets of those replacing the rusted tracks, moving like neon ants in the distance by the beach.  
   
“This is Iwatobi.” He smiles brightly against the muted sun reaching through the overcast of clouds. A gentle murmur from his back expresses the squirts acknowledgement he’s a participant of their conversation, regardless of understanding. Sousuke shoulders Yuki’s harness higher up his back so Yuki has even a hope of peeking over his big brother’s shoulder to gander at the same view he has.  
   
“This is home, Yuki.”  
   
 

* * *

  
   
   
Trying to convince those around him Yuki is his baby brother and _not_ a love child from some flippant one night stand is _tough_ – although he supposes half of that is somewhat true. It’s just _he_ didn’t father the little burble-squirt, and nor did _his_ father, but they share the same mother – and a lot of people can’t understand that, can’t fathom that a marriage of 18 years would mean jack-shit to a woman of such society.  
   
Sousuke doesn’t like to think about it, but, yes, he comes from a well-off family, and _no_ his mother has never lifted a finger her entire life and doesn’t intend to since she got half the estate in the divorce. Such a huge amount of cash and, of course, mother dearest had attempted to buy her first born’s love by offering a large sum of that to him from wherever the fuck on Earth she’d travelled to.  
   
Sousuke had waved her off, but sometimes he feels like picking up the phone and grovelling for a _small loan –_ just to see him through until payday. But then he quickly reconsiders the very idea of owing his mother anything and erases her number from his phone to remove the temptation.  
   
Sometimes, Sousuke watches his baby brother sleeping in his crib whilst he packs in some late-night studying for his online courses, and wonders if Yuki is happy here with him, if he prefers it here with a man he hadn’t met until he was a year old, but shares the same mother with him.  
   
He pulls his glasses from his face and sighs, thumping his head back against the headboard of his bed tucked against the wall and watches the tiny moth in his room circling the overhanging light, dimmed enough to keep from interrupting Yuki’s sleep.  
   
Out of sheer luck, or some insane, unknown ninja prowess, he’s managed to go an entire month with Yuki in his care without running into any familiar faces beside Coach Sasabe’s and the kids at the pool – but they never knew him before, in high school. As far as those kids are concerned, Sousuke is an adult, adults care for kids, it’s not an anomaly.  
   
Coach Sasabe, however, had choked on his coffee the moment Sousuke admitted to the reason behind the bags under his eyes and the timid request for cut-back hours since he couldn’t afford to pay a babysitter. And, like an angel piercing the heavens above, Coach Sasabe had snapped his fingers, erupted from his chair and disappeared from their meeting in the office.  
   
An hour later, Sousuke had found his boss pinning up posters for a childcare service the ITSC Returns would provide to swimmers with children in tow.  
   
“My Aunt loves kids, and she’s been trying to bend my arm to help with her new Nanny-business-venture-thing for more than a year now!” The bearded coach chortled, slamming his meaty hand against the poster. “We can provide swimming lessons, supervised play areas, naptime, maybe even a meal for long-stay patrons!”  
   
It sounded amazing, Sousuke was hesitant to explain his job description didn’t involve putting kids down for naps, or cutting the skins off apples for fussy eaters, but Sasabe had taken Sousuke’s hesitancy in another context.  
   
“Relax! You look like you’ve got a pineapple stuck up your ass, Yamazaki!” He’d knuckled Sousuke’s bad shoulder, but the brace beneath his clothing took the brunt of it. “I wouldn’t charge you for bringing your kid along-”  
   
“Brother.”  
   
“Whatever helps you sleep at night- anyway, I need a guinea pig for this new business venture, so your _brother_ can be the first to witness the Sasabe childcare service, courtesy of the ITSC Returns.”  
   
Sousuke smiles as his thoughts evaporate, and the blood rushing through his ears tunes back in the thick silence of his bedroom. He can hear Yuki’s gentle breaths from where he’s sprawled out on his back, his blanket tucked against his cheek and his thumb in his mouth.  
   
This town, Iwatobi, is a prime example of people sticking together and supporting each other. Sousuke is a city boy, he’s used to faceless strangers and the sensation of a thousand bodies around him moving in unified ignorance to one another. Iwatobi, however, is drastically different. People greet others on the streets, regardless of familiarity. They smile and wave, kids laugh and hold hands to cross roads, every one of them have smiles on their faces and flushed cheeks from the wind rushing down the valleys.  
   
It’s not without it’s dark side, though. The storms have been brutal in the past, dragging fishermen and townsfolk into the roiling ocean, the waves climbing high over the previously unprotected shoreline and washing away houses, shops and cafes decorated along the beach’s promenade.  
   
Rin’s father had been claimed by the same water Sousuke spent almost every day admiring, among countless others, and he must remind himself how dangerous the innocent coast appears in Iwatobi, less he become a victim too, and leave his brother alone on the land.  
   
His phone chirps with a new notification. It’s been so long since he’s received one that he’s neglected to turn the device to silent, however it appears Yuki is unfazed by the obnoxious ding resonating around their room. Once he’s sure Yuki is still asleep, he turns his attention back to his phone.  
   
**JAWS:** Hey, send nudes.  
   
Sousuke stifles a scoff, biting his lips between his teeth.  
   
**YOU:** Sure, I’ll ask Gou to send them over ASAP.  
   
**JAWS:** UGH. What are you doing?  
   
**JAWS:** What are you wearing?  
   
**YOU:** Your Mom.  
   
**JAWS:** Dude, I yield – holy shit. Brain bleach.  
   
A gentle sigh from his brother in his cot pulls his attention for a moment, but he seems pretty deep in his slumber for now, so Sousuke gets back to Rin.  
   
**YOU:** I’m studying at the moment. How’s your- whatever time of the day it is?  
   
**JAWS:** Boring. We’ve got a rest day before training begins for qualifying.  
   
**YOU:** You’ll be begging for a rest day in a week’s time. Enjoy the calm before the storm.  
   
**JAWS:** True.  
   
Sousuke drifts into easy conversation with Rin after that. Calling would be expensive, not to mention noisy, and Rin doesn’t suggest skyping for some reason, so he enjoys WhatsApp’ing Rin in the silence of his bedroom.  
   
Rin doesn’t know about Yuki either. As far as he’s concerned, it’s his business until proven otherwise, Yuki is _his_ responsibility since no one else wanted the frankly amazingly well behaved child, and both their lives are much better for it. If a lot more difficult.  
   
He’ll be found out eventually, but it’s not like he’s keeping Yuki a secret, he just doesn’t see the point in informing the world of something that makes people _pity_ him. Yuki isn’t a disease – he isn’t something that was forced on Sousuke, hell, he could’ve turned his nose up too and watched Yuki disappear into the midst of extended family and forget his existence.  
   
But Yuki is his baby brother and whilst he doesn’t feel forced into being Yuki’s soul carer, his guardian, he does feel obliged to give him a better childhood than he ever had caught in the middle of a shotgun marriage – the main cause of his parent’s misery. Yuki is just a symptom of it.  
   
**JAWS:** Hey, have you met up with the Iwatobi lads yet?  
   
**YOU:** Nah. Travelling to Tokyo is a commitment I can’t make at the moment.  
   
**JAWS:** You don’t have to go to Tokyo, dipshit. They’re all back in Iwatobi for the summer break.  
   
**YOU:** Oh.  
   
He feels the hairs on the back of his neck tingle at the revelation.  
   
**JAWS:** Yeah, they arrived yesterday. Rei and Nagisa are staying with Haru during summer break, and Makoto lives next door to Haru. It’s not like it’d be hard to organise a little get together.  
   
_So, they’re concentrated to one place. As long as I avoid the_ ‘danger zone’ _I shouldn’t run into them. They’ll be gone by autumn, I just have to survive until then._  
  
What was that about _not_ hiding?  
   
**YOU:** I’ll have to think about it. Seeing Nanase again might cause my body to involuntarily spasm and smack him clean around the face. It’s a chronic issue – a real pain, you know?  
   
**JAWS:** Therefore, your dick has fossilised, Sou. You’re so wrapped up in working and studying and being a ginormous dickhead that you can’t get laid and turn into a bitchy little asshole as a result.  
   
Sousuke grimaces as he works through that description in his head.  
   
**JAWS:** Hanging out isn’t going to kill you.  
   
**YOU:** If you’re suggesting I fuck one of the Iwatobi guys, then allow me a moment to gag violently around my straight razor.  
   
**JAWS:** I would _never_ suggest anything so crude, Sou. Nagisa and Rei are a very happy couple and would never participate in a threesome. Haru and Makoto, however, will happily worship your little party sausage.  
   
**YOU:** Gross. Pass the brain bleach. Also, you _can’t possibly_ call it a party sausage. You’ve seen it plenty during swim practice. I made them boys swoon, I’ll have you know.  
   
**JAWS:** Keep telling yourself that. I gotta go. Just _seriously_ consider hanging out with people your age, please? Coach Sasabe is going to give you a drinking problem, and Gou can’t hold your hand all the time. They might start thinking she’s straight – and I’m too far away to fight off the Mikoshibas.  
   
**YOU:** Alright. I’ll consider it. See you soon.  
   
**JAWS:** Promise. (Also send nudes)  
   
Sousuke sighs and closes his eyes for a moment, before hunting through his photos on his phone to find a picture of a naked mole rat Momo had sent him one time, comparing it to Nitori’s foreskin and _that_ had been _far_ too much info. It isn’t two seconds later Rin’s response blares across his screen.  
   
**JAWS:** Trousers down. Cock out. Thank you very much. Xoxo  
   
Sousuke laughs softly, reaches up to the overhead light to yank the pull, and settles down for the night.


	2. Nanase & Tachibana

As if Rin’s words had jinxed his very existence, he runs into a familiar face on his morning commute to work with Yuki strapped to his usual place on his back. Literally. It’s a blind corner leading into a narrow alleyway tucked between concrete walls and littered with the dumpsters of surrounding commercial buildings. It’s not somewhere Sousuke usually expects anyone to suddenly emerge from, but low and behold.  
   
The participant in the collision almost hits the deck, but Sousuke’s reflexes throw out an arm to stabilise the person before any real harm can come to them.  
   
“Watch where you’re going.” They snap in this voice that sounds way too calm for someone who relays an annoyed statement. Too familiar. A searing chill tears down his diaphragm as Sousuke rears back and lets go of the man in front of him.  
   
“Fuck,” He blurts before he can retreat and regroup. “Nanase.”  
   
The freestyle swimmer straightens himself out and flicks his hair from his face in that typical obnoxious fashion which grinds Sousuke’s gears something fierce. If the hair’s getting in his eyes, why not cut it? Whilst Nanase Haruka tends to his own surprise at seeing his, probably unwelcome – face back in Iwatobi, Sousuke takes note of Nanase’s garb.  
   
Chef whites, an apron, and a blue checked cloth hanging from the top of it. He glances at the building beside him, identifying it as a homely café frequented by the elderly of Iwatobi, a few of whom appear to be ogling at them from inside. The logo on Nanase’s chef whites matches the name of the café.  
   
“Yamazaki.” The other breathes. Sousuke just about hears Nanase’s delicate exhalation of his name over the cry of gulls overhead, and the piercing rush of blood and adrenaline working its way to his brain since he _knows_ Nanase expects an explanation.  
   
“Rin mentioned you and the rest of your brood were back for the summer.” He attempts casually. “I see you’ve already nabbed a summer job, too. How nice for you.”  
   
“Yama-”  
   
“Well, I’ve gotta run. I’m sure you need to get back to work too.”  
   
“Wait-”  
   
Sousuke deliberately ignores the demand and pushes forward into a jog before a slender set of fingers grab a strap from Yuki’s harness for a brief second. He hears Nanase gasp and feels the tension from the strap go slack, but he retains enough sense to stop in his tracks, regardless of his release.  
   
Nanase’s eyes are bearing into the back of not just his head, but Yuki’s too. His little brother is likely staring right back at Nanase, his little burbles of interest are drifting off in the freestyler’s direction whilst he shifts to get a better look.  
   
Sousuke knows he was likely rumbled from the moment Nanase laid eyes on him barely 5 minutes ago, but it’s pretty damn close to impossible he can wave it all off now. He glances at Nanase over his shoulder and sighs, feeling the tension in his guts ease somewhat in his defeat.  
   
Just as his chapped lips part to provide the long awaited explanation, the café door swings open, knocking into the windchimes hanging over the entryway.  
   
“Haru, _please_ stop staring at the ocean-”  
   
 _Oh, great._  
   
“Yamazaki-kun.”  
   
 _Totally jinxed it, Rin. Thanks._

  


* * *

  
  
  
It’s a good thing he’d set out an hour early for work in hopes of getting a few laps around the pool before his shift started, and to be sure Yuki settled into the day-care service he was acting as _guinea pig_ for. A good thing, because one look from Tachibana Makoto, and he’d been dragged into the café and bundled into a corner booth away from the prying pensioners and their thirst for gossip in this sleepy town.  
   
Yuki is happy enough regardless of his location, but he’s more vocal out of his harness and jabs a crayon joyously into the colouring book Tachibana provided him with. Sousuke leans over his tiny brother on his lap, one arm either side of the colouring book to ensure Yuki doesn’t accidentally draw on the aged oak booth table. He’s sure the table is worth more than both Sousuke’s arms, which remain unmarred as of yet.  
   
The interior of the café is very rustic. The chairs and tables are dark, thick pieces of furniture made to stand the test of time, whilst the tables appear to be oak, the chairs are cherry wood. The booth seats appear to be refashioned church pews with high backs and cushions decorated in soft cotton and lace. Then there’s all the _doilies_. There’s one in the centre of his table, one under his mug of hot coffee placed far from Yuki’s grasp, a massive one draped over the back of the church pew booth seat in front of him- even the sculpted ceiling around the lights looks like a damn doily.  
   
Sousuke glances at the massive collection of frames on the walls, big, small, square, round, gold gilded, mirrored, busted, and antique, around photos from decades past, adding to the sensation of stepping back in time, right into an Agatha Christie novel. It’s very _English_. No wonder the oldies of Iwatobi like being here – it’s as close as they’ll ever be to the coffee shops of ol’ timey London, _far_ from their otherwise very Japanese lives.  
   
He’ll have to send Rin photos of the place for an honest answer.  
   
“Yamazaki-kun.” It’s only been 10 minutes since Tachibana left him at the booth with his coffee to tend to the breakfast rush, but, bar a few older ladies happily chattering away on the other side of the seating area, the café has fallen silent.  
   
“I’ve told you- it’s Sousuke.” He sighs in response as he brushes his hand over Yuki’s feathery black hair, eyes downcast to the vomit of colours spread across the butchered picture of a cow.  
   
“Sousuke, sorry.” Tachibana utters sheepishly and slides into the booth in front of him. “Haru’s busy in the kitchen right now, but…” He observes green eyes drifting down to the 1 year old sat in his lap. “I can’t help myself- he’s so adorable.”  
   
Sousuke doesn’t know how to react to Tachibana- _Makoto_ sinking against the table in front of him and reaching his long arms across the table to gently bop Yuki on his button nose. Yuki belts out a bubbly giggle and holds his blue crayon out towards Makoto, who takes the crayon as if it’s the holy grail itself.  
   
“Thank you!” He chuckles brightly. “How kind, it’s my favourite shade of blue, too!”  
   
Yuki shifts closer to the table and pushes hard against the lip of it to stand on his wobbly legs, his feet digging into the solid muscles of Sousuke’s thighs, but it doesn’t bother him in the slightest.  
   
“Oh, wow!” Makoto opens his hands, and, of course, Yuki takes that as an invitation to climb up onto the table and cross the short distance of it to cuddle up to Makoto’s chest. “Ah, you’re just the cutest little thing ever.” He tenses slightly and glances up to Sousuke smiling in amusement at them. “What’s his name?”  
   
“Yuki.”  
   
“Snow.”  
   
Sousuke peers over the cake counter to where Nanase is leaning up against the glass cabinet, his chin resting on his folded arms. His black hair is sliding back into his eyes, but he puffs it away before it can obscure his vision.  
   
“Yeah,” Sousuke clears his throat, picks up a crayon, and attempts to colour inside the lines of the massacred cow picture, courtesy of the squirt cuddling Tachibana across from him.  
   
“Isn’t Yuki a girl’s name?” Nanase sighs boredly.  
   
“Isn’t Haruka a girl’s name?” Sousuke bites back.  
   
“Haru.” Makoto berates gently. “I think it’s a pretty name. Plus, it has _something_ to do with water, be happy about that at least, huh?”  
   
“Fine.” The calm and collected swimmer hums, before returning to his duties in the kitchen – or whatever is on the other side of the sheer curtain doorway.  
   
“Sorry. He’s grouchy since Nagisa stole his “bath-time” this morning, so he had to make do with a shower.” Makoto waves the subject away and leans back in the booth to get a better look at Yuki sat in his lap. “Nagisa and Rei are staying at Haru’s place for the summer.”  
   
“So I heard.” Sousuke sips tentatively at his coffee – and is pleasantly surprised Nanase hadn’t served him coloured poison since the coffee is pretty damn good compared to the rocket fuel pumped out of the coffee filter at the ITSC Returns. Rin is probably right about Sasabe giving him a drinking problem, since drinking that shit is like knocking back coffee flavour moonshine.  
   
“Oh, Rin told you?” Makoto smiles down to Yuki, his head cocking and his eyes squeezing shut in his trademark gesture of pure, genuine joy. Sousuke needs to collect himself before responding.  
   
“Yeah.” He trails off into awkward silence. Luckily, Yuki has him covered since he’s so mesmerised by Makoto’s shirt buttons reflecting the sunlight streaming in through the window, and is being quite vocal about it. Sousuke spends a moment observing Makoto this time. Whilst Nanase had been dressed in chef whites, Makoto seems to be the barista in this establishment – his white shirt pulled just tight enough over his developed muscles to lay waste to the innocent, vulnerable expression he usually has plastered to his face. The black apron cinches in at his narrow waist much like Nanase’s had, and they appear to have matching blue check clothes in their apron pockets.  
   
“Sorry,”  
   
Sousuke glances up from his coffee, snapping out of his reverie with a blink.  
   
“It’s just… Rin never mentioned… _this_.”  
   
“He doesn’t know.” He takes another gulp of his drink and rests it back on the damn doily. “I’d prefer to tell him myself at some point, so…”  
   
“Right. My mouth is shut.” Makoto nods. “Does Gou know?”  
   
“Nope.”  
   
“Do… Does _anyone_ know?”  
   
“Aside from you and Nanase? No. It’s my business. My responsibility.” Sousuke leans forward to rest his elbows on the table. “I need to make sure Yuki’s able to permanently remain in my care before I make any big announcements.” He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but since he’s still clarifying everything with the family lawyers, signing the last few papers to formally hand custody of Yuki to him, there _is_ a chance an older, more experienced member of his extended family could demand custody, to which he’d have little to fight with.  
   
“You’re going for full custody of him?” Makoto stutters. “Wow – that’s a lot of responsibility to take on at our age.” He hesitates briefly and turns his head back over to the counter where Nanase has made a reappearance. Sousuke watches as Makoto’s brows drop in what _appears_ to be a warning. However, Nanase opens his mouth anyway.  
  
“He should’ve thought of that before he got some poor girl pregnant. They _do_ sell condoms here in Iwatobi, Makoto.”  
   
“ _Haru_.”  
   
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Sousuke can’t help but laugh regardless of his flushed flustering, jarring Makoto and Nanase from what looked like the brink of an argument. “He’s not my son. He’s my baby brother.”  
   
“What?” Makoto chirps. “Brother? You mean-”  
   
“You didn’t have unprotected sex?” Nanase sounds _almost_ relieved.  
   
“Fuck no- of course not! Yuki is my baby brother.” He takes a deep breath, and proceeds to explain the true extent of Yuki’s creation, and the backstory to Sousuke’s life for the past year since graduation. By the time he’s done, the entire café is in a dead silence – even the gathering of pensioners in the corner have gone quiet. Sometimes, Sousuke damns how well his deep and powerful voice can travel in closed spaces.  
   
“Wait.” Nanase has moved to leaning across the cashier counter, bent over the solid wood surface to get closer. “So, it’s just you and Yuki here in Iwatobi?”  
   
“Yup.”  
   
“Your Mom abandoned you and your Dad for some boy-toy gardener, then your Dad abandoned you for some business venture in Wales.” Makoto mutters softly against the top of Yuki’s head. “You were both abandoned through no fault of your own, but due to the selfishness of your parents.”  
   
“I wasn’t abandoned, I’m 18 years old-”  
   
“Doesn’t matter if you’re 1, 10, 18, or 35 years old, Yamazaki. If your parents up and ditch you with no warning, that’s abandonment.” There’s something in those deeply entrancing cerulean eyes that speaks of true pain and experience of this subject, but Sousuke selfishly agrees to not press the matter lest he waste even more time before his shift.  
   
“I think what you’re doing is incredibly noble, Sousuke.” Makoto utters softly into the silence around them. “I only helped my parents care for my two younger siblings, I wasn’t their soul carer. I was more of a free babysitter.” He swallows and finally tears his eyes back up to the butterfly swimmer opposite him. “I’m sorry about what happened to you two.”  
   
“Don’t be, I’m not.” Sousuke shrugs and finishes his coffee. “I might not ever join you on the world stage for swimming, but Yuki and I will be cheering from the side lines.”  
   
“Oh.” Makoto flicks a concerned look over to Nanase and sinks awkwardly back into his seat. “Ah-”  
   
“What time does your shift start at the swimming club?” Nanase ploughs on over Makoto’s anxious noises, and whilst Sousuke’s curiosity is peaked, he’s more concerned about getting to work on time.  
   
“Soon enough I should bail. And, sorry about running into you before, Nanase.” He dangles the back harness from his elbow having decided to carry Yuki in arms to work since the harness is such a pain in the ass to fumble around with.  
   
“It’s nice seeing you again, surprisingly.”  
   
“ _Haru_.” Makoto shakes his head and stands to pass Yuki back over to his big brother. “If you’re free tonight, you should come over to Haru’s for dinner. Maybe even stay the night. It’s the weekend tomorrow – you should have time off, right?”  
   
Sousuke blinks and diverts his gaze over to Nanase, who remains leant over the counter with his head boredly propped on his hand. It takes a few seconds, but Nanase finally registers the unspoken question lingering in the air.  
   
“Sure, whatever.” Nanase sighs. “I have my old futon from when I was a kid in the closet. I’ll freshen it up for Yuki when I get back later today.”  
   
“Thanks, Haru.” Makoto beams. “What time do you finish today?”  
   
“14:00, but I’ll have to head back home first to grab some overnight stuff. Are you sure it’s not a problem?”  
   
Nanase makes some sort of noise _related_ to a laugh and straightens up from the counter as if enjoying some inside joke. “Besides Yuki’s, I only have two futons…”  
   
“Which Rei and Nagisa have been using.” Makoto’s eyes widen slightly, a flush staining the heights of his cheekbones. “We’ll have to pair up. Nagisa and Rei will naturally want to sleep in the same futon so…”  
   
“I can sleep on the floor, it doesn’t bother-”  
   
“Not with your shoulder you can’t!” Makoto suddenly blurts. Sousuke raises an eyebrow, but is overall flattered by Makoto’s concern as he jostles Yuki higher up against his hip. “Sorry- I… I’ll sleep on the floor.”  
   
“You can both share the futon like Nagisa and Rei.”  
   
“Haru!” Makoto wails. “You’re making things weird!”  
   
“Your reaction is making things weird.” Nanase drops his arms against the counter before hauling himself up straight. “We can figure out the details later. Let Yamazaki go to work.”  
   
“Ah! Right!” The tawny haired swimmer bows stiffly to the two Yamazaki’s, much to Sousuke’s amusement, and utters brokenly; “Thank you, we hope to see you again soon!”  
   
It’s not until he’s sat on the Nanase’s household floor during dinner after a relaxed day at work that Sousuke realises Makoto treated him like a damn customer upon leaving the café. He hadn’t even been allowed to pay for his drink or replace the colouring book Yuki had destroyed, where exactly did that say Sousuke had been a desirable customer?  
   
Whatever. Makoto had been pretty flustered thanks to Nanase’s teasing.  
   
Rin always managed to attract the weird ones. Nanase is the only one diagnosed with a learning and social disability, but it’s any wonder how the rest of them managed to avoid placing high on the autistic spectrum as well. Makoto is the closest thing to normal, _bearable_ , but his unbelievable ability to read Nanase like an open book must be some sort of psychic gift considering the nearest thing Nanase offers to an insight into his world is a list of three words or under sentences.  
   
 _Together_ , as if fused like some Dragon Ball Z shit, they could form a relatively balanced human being, but Sousuke can only dream.  
   
Meanwhile, Nagisa makes even _Momo_ look placid. He’s just so _bouncy_ and every five minutes, he throws himself at someone for some reason and- it’s not Sousuke’s scene. He needs his personal space. If most of the blonde’s time wasn’t spent attached to Rei’s hip, Sousuke wonders how hyper he’d get since Rei appears to be more of his handler than his boyfriend – but they make a cute couple, he supposes.  
   
Rei, the fellow butterfly swimmer, well… at first, Sousuke found him pretty obnoxious, but he quickly discovered how deeply he cared for the Iwatobi swim team, regardless of his lack of true unadulterated love for the sport itself. He was more of a track athlete, they all knew that, however Nagisa was a force to be reckon with – so the story was told.  
   
Looking around Nanase’s living room, he’s suddenly struck by all these opinions at once, and his brain zones him out before it overwhelms him. Yuki is against his arm enjoying his final meal of the day before bed, his tiny fingers holding the milk bottle for himself since they’d both figured out Sousuke tends to daydream and neglect tipping the bottle as Yuki drinks.  
   
“How’s the temperature, Yuki? You good?” His response from the squirt is a milky smile and gurgle before the feasting continues.  
   
“You really are an astounding man, Yamazaki-senpai.” Rei announces from across the Kotatsu. “Yuki seems so genuinely happy to be around you.”  
   
“He’s happy around everyone.” Sousuke tries to avoid the praise, the kind words glancing off his skin, but leaving a crack in their wake. Praise is most certainly _not_ something he’s comfortable with.  
   
“Ah, Sou-sou, don’t be such a damp sponge.” Nagisa cuts in, sidling up against Sousuke’s bicep to get a better look at Yuki suckling from his bottle. “Do you even see his face? He adores you.”  
   
“Probably gas.”  
   
Nanase snorts into the sleeve of his oversized sweater reaching past the tips of his fingers, before swiftly composing himself and pouring another cup of gunpowder green tea. The earthy scent is lost to the sweet musk of Yuki’s baby formula, but the stagnant stench of mackerel prepared kindly by Nanase permeates everything.  
   
It remains on the table, untouched, uneaten. What are they waiting for? He wonders.  
   
“You guys can start without me. No need to hold back for my sake, jees.” He laces his words with a chuckle to make sure he doesn’t come off demanding under someone else’s roof. Instead of sheepishly reaching for their food, they glance at one another, as if noticing their peers for the first time that evening.  
   
“Oh.” Makoto reaches to his neck to scratch anxiously. “I guess we’re all still blown away by you, Sousuke.”  
   
“Huh?” He grunts.  
   
“You’re usually a prick with little consideration for anyone else around you, or at least, you _used_ to be.” Nanase ignores the stern gaze from Makoto next to him. “It’s weird seeing you this nice.”  
   
“He’s just a baby. I’m not gonna be an asshole towards him.”  
   
“Well, duh!” Nagisa chirps. “I’m sure what Haru is _trying_ to say is; it can’t be easy having such a big responsibility so young, but you’re taking it all in your stride. You look happier for it, too.”  
   
“Probably gas.” Nanase mutters behind his hand.  
   
Sousuke just grins at the black-haired swimmer as he pulls Yuki up against his shoulder and gives him a few encouraging pats.

  
 

* * *

   
   
   
“I know I said this at the café, but; coincidence is an understatement.”  
   
Haru ducks his head to focus on drying the dishes Makoto hands to him covered in suds.  
   
“Sorry. I get that you don’t want to talk about it, but it’s pretty funny, really.”  
   
“No it’s not.”  
   
Makoto smiles at Haru’s reflection in the window above the sink and sways his hips to the side to playfully knock against Haru’s. “It’s fate. Not five minutes after you said it, Sousuke-kun shows up with a baby in tow.”  
   
“Just let it go, will you?”  
   
“No can do. The timing was too good to be mere chance, Haru.”  
   
He sighs heavily and slumps against the counter, turning the plate in circles through the dampening cloth. “So what? It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a personal preference of mine-”  
   
“And two seconds later, you literally ran into Sousuke-kun in all his family-way glory.” Makoto glances over his shoulder to throw Haru another one of his kind smiles. “Have you ever considered him like that?”  
   
“Who? Yamazaki?” Haru places the plate to the side and takes the handful of chopsticks from Makoto to dry one by one. “I’ve never considered him a parental type, no.”  
   
“That’s not what I’m asking.”  
   
“That’s what I’m answering.”  
   
Makoto sighs, concentrating on the prongs of the large wooden salad fork in the sink. “I guess you two never made up, then. I thought you were on first name basis after the Samezuka festival, but you still behave like little kids.”  
   
“We do not.”  
   
“Do too. I just don’t get why you’re both still like this.”  
   
Haru waits for Makoto to finish talking before snapping straight his drying cloth and draping it over his arm. “Is that what you’re upset about, or is there something you want to say?”  
   
By the looks of it, he’s sussed Makoto out. The annoyed expression shifts to one of guilt, a smile spreading across his lips as he shrugs helplessly at Haru’s reflection. “I’m sorry. I’m… I’m worried about him, Haru.”  
   
“Yamazaki.”  
   
“Yeah. I mean- I’m not worried about Yuki since we can all see how happy he is with his big brother. But, who’s there for Sousuke-kun?”  
   
Haru can see the outcome of this conversation from a mile away, but he intends to meet it head on in hopes his full attention can ease Makoto’s anxiety even by a little.  
   
“His parents abandoned both him and his baby brother to fend for themselves. None of us know even the first thing of what he’s going through right now.”  
   
“But I do, right?”  
   
Makoto grimaces. “Would it really be so bad talking to him, Haru?”  
   
“About this, yes.”  
   
“Not right away, of course. But in your own time.” The tawny brunette finishes with the dishes and tips the excess water from the tub into the sink. He leaves the rubber gloves laid out on the windowsill to dry before turning his attention back on Haru. “And, since you’re not going back to-”  
   
“Haru! Mako! Rei’s never watched Lion King!”  
   
“ _Nagisa._ ”  
   
“Where’s your DVD, Haru? This is an emergency!”  
   
The conversation is left in taters by Nagisa’s outburst from the living room. Haru doesn’t want to put it back together, and Makoto is already trying to pretend the conversation never happened in the first place. He watches Makoto shrug and leave him in the kitchen alone to wallow.


	3. Sharpie Shark

Maybe the Iwatobi guys were onto something when they said Sousuke seemed happier in himself. Not being in debilitating pain each and every day from his busted shoulder certainly helps. But, he knows his patience has grown in leaps and bounds when he notices a set of eyes have been staring at _him_ rather than the movie from the living room and he doesn’t immediately want them to fuck off and die.  
   
Progress.  
   
Sousuke’s putting Yuki down for the night on the small children’s futon Nanase had kindly supplied, when the lingering feeling of being watched by someone in the living room reaches him in the guest room. The sliding doors are pushed back to let in just enough light for Sousuke to see what he’s doing, and the big eyes staring up at him from the futon _aren’t_ the ones he’s sensing all over him.  
   
“Comfy?” He murmurs down to his drowsy baby brother. Yuki hums an affirmative and presses his blanket to his cheek whilst watching Sousuke crouched over him. He’s certainly an inquisitive little squirt, but his eyes scream the exhaustion of a long day spent playing, drawing, eating, pooping, and occasionally swooning random passers-by. Must be tough being an adorable baby, Sousuke chuckles softly.  
   
“Sweet dreams, bro.” He gently swipes his thumb over the black locks to pull them out of the way, before placing a kiss on Yuki’s forehead. “Remember, you gotta wake me up if you fill your diaper. You don’t want that nasty rash back, right?”  
   
Yuki gurgles merrily at the tone of his brother’s voice, seemingly amused by the very idea of that terrible rash Yuki had come into Sousuke’s care with. Sousuke wonders if half the reason his Dad dumped Yuki on their grandmother was the rash, since the man clearly hadn’t attempted to treat it. Sousuke remembers the pointed questions the doctor had pinned him with after he’d discovered it and sought medical help. But it was gone, for now, best keep it that way.  
   
“I’m gonna leave you to sleep, now. I’ll be right outside if you get scared. I know it’s a new place, but you’ve got plenty of us around you to keep you safe and sound, okay?”  
   
Yuki’s thumb makes it to his mouth before he can respond, and the slow blink of his long lashes repeats until the squirt is out like a light. Sousuke ensures Yuki is securely tucked in before rising to his feet and returning to the group of guys surrounding the Kotatsu, fixated on the movie – all bar one.  
   
Haru’s cerulean eyes drift up to his face. There’s an open spot beside him Sousuke sinks into, but instead of focusing on the movie, once his legs are tucked under the heated Kotatsu, he sprawls on his back and rests his eyes for a moment or six.  
   
He refuses to think he’s gotten lazy, but he enjoys taking a nap with Yuki in the middle of the day, usually it helps him from burning out completely – but today there hasn’t been a chance. Yuki had his nap at the ITSC Returns, but Sousuke had spent the last hour running on fumes in the face of his nap deficiency.  
   
Going without was starting to become a running theme since acquiring his little brother. Meals, sleep, socialising, privacy – a lot of stuff flew out the window for Yuki’s sake. He certainly doesn’t regret anything; however, he can’t say he doesn’t miss being a lone wolf – a bachelor of sorts with no interest in settling down. He doesn’t want to associate himself with the word “hermit”, but it’s damn close.  
   
“Tired?”  
   
“Mm- understatement.” Someone’s playing footsie with him under the Kotatsu, and yet he can’t force himself to care since there are so many legs beneath the table already someone was bound to get lost trying to find a buddy. “Thanks for dinner, Nanase.”  
   
“You’re welcome.”  
   
Short and sweet conversation done over the stampede of wildebeest and Nagisa’s gross sobbing in the corner with Rei, Sousuke calls that a win. The quiet, emotional part of the movie rolls round, with Simba finding his father Mufasa dead in the dirt in the wake of the stampede. Rin would bawl his God damn eyes out every time, get all gross and snotty and bury his face in Sousuke’s chest to use him as a tissue until he could feel the moisture hitting his skin.  
   
Back then, it’d been gross, however, since having a small child projectile vomit a variety of half-digested baby foods all over him, clean shit from the ass right up to the nape of his brother’s neck, and occasionally avoid the _fountains of youth_ whilst changing the little guy, he can’t force himself to even pretend he’s grossed out by much of anything anymore.  
   
Sousuke feels a presence sprawl out on the floor beside him, and glances over to see Nanase stretching half-assedly, his hands finally popping out of the sleeves of his sweater – probably Makoto’s, he considers.  
   
“If you’re tired, why not go to sleep?”  
   
Nanase is still talking to him? And _willingly_ too. It’s pretty astonishing, since Nanase barely talks to anyone outside of the Iwatobi gang – then again, Sousuke could say that about himself, except he just doesn’t talk much to _anyone_. Yuki has him beat there, he ‘talks’ to _every damn person_ if they give him a second.  
  
“I think Makoto will try to sleep on the floor out of courtesy if I did that.” He peeks over Nanase to see the other three still fixated on the movie, the little conversation beside them lost in the background. “He doesn’t sound comfortable sharing a futon, anyway.”  
   
“Don’t take it personally, he just doesn’t want to make an ass of himself.”  
   
“Why would he?”  
   
Nanase turns onto his side towards Sousuke, bending his arm to use as a pillow as he gets comfortable. “He’s a cuddler.”  
   
Sousuke _likes_ Makoto, but the idea of the huge backstroke swimmer suffocating him under the futon in a tangle of beefy limbs and awkward morning wood makes him damn uncomfortable. His eyes close as a shudder courses through him.  
   
“If that’s the case, I suppose it’d be a damn shame if I were to fall asleep right here.”  
   
“You could come to my bed.”  
   
Sousuke’s eyes fly back open. _What?_ He’s not sure he heard that correctly. Surely, _surely,_ Nanase had said something else and Sousuke’s tired mind had interpreted it completely wrong. “Run that by me again.” He croaks.  
   
“Come to my bed.” Nanase rolls his eyes to the floor. “As in; move your physical body to my bedroom and share my bed with me.”  
   
“That’s what I thought you said.” Sousuke sighs as he rolls onto his back and turns his head towards the open guest room where he can see Yuki sleeping soundly. He could probably curl up comfortably with his brother and sleep with his head on the futon to avoid the worst of neck strain…  
   
He can already see his physiotherapist tutting and shaking his head at him, telling him to take better care of his injury or risk being permanently disabled. If he fucks up his shoulder sleeping on the cold, hard floor, caring for Yuki will become an almost impossible task.  
   
Sousuke’s already sacrificed a lot for the sake of his brother, so glancing back at Nanase to give a nod, even under the massive weight of the implications following his acceptance, feels pretty underwhelming. He gets to his feet and picks up his bag from the front door to avoid the spontaneous drama of finding the second lion king movie DVD, and sneaks off into Nanase’s bedroom. At first, it’s a little hard to see that this is indeed a thoroughly lived-in room, since Nanase’s belongings are tidied away with a sparse number of trinkets scattered along the bookshelves and desk.  
   
A couple photos of who he assumes is Nanase’s absent parents are dwarfed by the sheer quantity of photos of his friends pinned up to a corkboard above the desk. Sousuke can see himself in a few of them, mainly from the Samezuka festival – but there’s one which had been taken after the last race of his swimming career with his shoulder blazing red and purple and swollen.  
   
It’s a weird concept, staring into the eyes of himself a year ago, exhausted and struggling to stand under the crushing pain from his shoulder. To think, gazing into the lens of Gou’s camera back then, that he would be looking out to himself in Nanase’s bedroom, of all places, with his baby brother in his custody… It’s crazy.  
   
Sousuke remembers the mad rush to the hospital he and Rin went into for treatment a short while after the photo was taken. The waiting room had been quiet, but they’d still been sat there for 3 hours at least before being seen. Rin had spent half the time crying, the rest complaining – loudly – about the wait itself. The sudden shifts between moods had given Sousuke whiplash, but he’d been grateful for the company as an oddly serene sensation flooded through him.  
   
He’d finished swimming. He was done. He’d retired with dozens of gold trophies and medals – he’d accomplished more in his short career than most athletes did in their entire run, he wasn’t going to sulk and mope over spilt milk like Rin had.  
   
“The murky water cleared that day.”  
   
Sousuke controls the hard twitch his body wants to give in reaction to Nanase’s voice coming from the door way, brushing it off by pinning his gaze on the freestyle swimmer in the darkened room. “Murky, huh?” He murmurs.  
   
“When I swam the freestyle race against you at the ITSC Returns, I could see how your vile mood tainted the water. You were swimming for yourself, to prove a point, to kick my ass, you didn’t enjoy the sport or the water. They were just a means to demonstrate strength and domination over your foe.” Nanase steps into the room and pulls the sliding door shut behind him. “Here.”  
   
A walkie talkie looking thing is shoved into Sousuke’s bemused face. It’s a baby monitor – where Nanase got it from, he doesn’t know, but he takes it anyway and reverts to their prior conversation.  
   
“I was a selfish asshole back then, so I’m not going to take offence to your bluntness.” Sousuke tells himself more than anything. “I was in constant pain whenever I swam. For 5 years, I battled my shoulder until it finally fucked up for good at the Nationals.”  
   
“During the relay.”  
   
“Yeah.” Sousuke smiles dejectedly at himself. “Have you ever wanted something so bad you’re willing to sell a kidney for it? Well, what I did was very similar. When I realised Rin had returned from Australia, I dumped everything just for the chance to swim with him again. It seems silly to think about it now, especially since it cost my parents a stupid amount money – money they never missed, sure – but… I sacrificed my shoulder for him.”  
   
“So swimming became some ugly battle just for you to realise a dream that would never happen. You didn’t want to accept it was over.” Nanase isn’t trying to provoke him here, but Sousuke feels a tug on his temper before reeling it back. “At the relay, though, you accepted it was over.”  
   
“Oh yeah, for sure.” Sousuke scratches the back of his neck and shrugs. “I’ve never really left the pool, but competitive swimming is an absolute write-off. I’d always thought I could rely on my swimming as a career, as a future, but when it all fell through like that… I felt _relieved._ ”  
   
“That’s what the water told me.”  
   
 _Weird kid._  
   
“Don’t give me that look. It’s true.” Nanase snaps. Sousuke blinks, convinced he _hadn’t_ said that out loud. _Psychic, this kid is psychic. I’m doomed._  
   
“Your shoulder gave out just after the wall kick, right?”  
   
Sousuke can’t remember anymore, since everything had been a searing white pain from start to finish, but he nods regardless.  
   
“Whenever I shared a pool with you, Yamazaki, the water felt thick with tension and _agony_. I could never concentrate, I felt like I was being dragged into the murky depths when all I wanted to do was float on the surface and feel the water.” Nanase sighs as he crosses the room to sit on the – admittedly _small_ – looking bed. “I used to think it was my fault, that our past was interfering with our relationship, and thus tainted the water. And at the relay, I realised it wasn’t your fault either. It’s human nature to chase after wants and desires. Sometimes, it can make us say and do things we shouldn’t… like sell a kidney.”  
   
Sousuke’s annoyance diminishes completely at the little smile gracing Nanase’s lips.  
   
“Or tear your rotator cuff.” He quips back.  
   
“Or…” Nanase stops and drops his gaze to the floor. “Or, sometimes, your actions, and the actions of those around you, make you despise the person your dreams and desires want you to become. Sometimes, it’s best to let them go willingly, rather than being forced to after the damage has been done.”  
   
Sousuke sinks to sit down next to Nanase, and doesn’t consider the density of the mattress beneath him before Nanase has to catch his balance, lest he fall into Sousuke and the dip he’s created. “I get the feeling you aren’t using me as your example.” He rolls his lips between his teeth, feeling the stubble under his mouth prickle against his skin. “I’ve been meaning to ask a few things, actually.”  
   
“Go ahead.”  
   
“The café. You own it, don’t you?”  
   
Nanase goes silent for a moment, as if that wasn’t the question he’d been expecting to hear first. His oceanic eyes are studying something opposite him, or searching for something of interest in the moon-bathed bedroom.  
   
“Yeah.” He finally answers. “My Grandmother used to own it, but when she died, she entrusted it to one of my cousins who lives in Osaka. He didn’t want the responsibility, so gave me ownership of it since I still live in Iwatobi. It remained closed until I had the money to reopen it this summer.”  
   
“The prize money from your swimming competitions.” Sousuke sighs.  
   
“Yeah. Swimming for the money made me feel sick to the bone. I managed to convince myself it was for my future, it was for the chance to be free, but it’s left a bitter taste in my mouth.” Nanase sucks his teeth in emphasis. “I love swimming, but I can’t do it competitively regardless of “raw talent” or how much of a “waste” it is now I’ve retired.”  
   
“Does dropping out of college have to be a price too?”  
   
“I haven’t dropped out. My tutors agreed to mitigating circumstances, and are allowing me to study from Iwatobi in online courses. I wouldn’t throw something like that away, but I couldn’t- _can’t_ handle the pressure of competitive swimming on the world stage. I’m not like Rin, I’m-…. I’m not like Rin.”  
   
Sousuke releases another sigh and sinks his elbows down to his knees to stare listlessly at the floor.  
   
“You’re angry with me, aren’t you?”  
   
“I’m not, actually. I was just thinking it was a shame, is all.” He rocks back and tucks his arms behind his head as he lays half-on Nanase’s bed, his feet still on the floor. “Think about it, man. Our stories aren’t any different. We both had to stop swimming competitively because the sport itself was inflicting damage. Mine was physical, whilst yours was mental. I can go to rehab, take some painkillers, use some cooling spray to deal with the lingering injury – but you? I wouldn’t know where to start trying to help someone like you.”  
   
Nanase’s gone very still from his perch on the edge of the bed, as if he’s stopped breathing entirely.  
   
“You’ve taken your first step to recovery by coming home, by distancing yourself from the competitive environment, and then taken a second step with the café, since you have an income to support yourself with. You’re not going to feel the effects of it for a while, but you’re doing the right thing, Nanase.”  
   
“Sousuke.”  
   
He cracks an eye open at the breathy exhale, and tenses up at the sight above him. He’s sitting up in time to catch sight of tears streaking down Nanase’s face, before an arm crosses over his eyes to shield himself from the shame of Sousuke seeing anymore of his weakness. He’s truly speechless in the face of Nanase’s emotions. Nanase is the cool and collected of the Iwatobi bunch, he’s the unreadable down-to-earth kid with the sweeping bangs and free spirit. He’s the _last_ person Sousuke ever expects to be brought to tears by _him_ of all people.  
   
 _Rin_ is the romantic one with the emotional speeches pouring out his ass, not him – and _yet_.  
   
“I’ve never been able to put it into words.” Nanase chokes as he pulls his knees to his chest and lets his hair dangle in his teary eyes. “Just- hearing someone say what I’ve been trying to explain for so long… you _understand_.”  
   
“Yeah- uh…” Sousuke moves to scratch absently at his neck, when the movement brings attention to the baby monitor still in his hand. “Can I just ask how the fuck you managed to pull a baby monitor out of your ass?”  
   
Nanase chuckles and sniffs, rubbing at his cheeks and eyes and relaxes his legs back to the floor. “Makoto’s parents are letting us borrow it. It’s ancient, but both receivers still work. Makoto sussed you were going to sleep in my bed and grabbed it from home.”  
   
“It’s already on, right? There’s so many buttons on this thing…”  
   
“You don’t have one at home?”  
   
“Nah.” Sousuke places the baby monitor on the bedside table and inhales sharply through his nose as he stretches and clicks a few things. “He sleeps in his cot right next to my bed, so I’m never too far from him. I sleep when he sleeps, he showers when I shower. I eat when he eats. The consistency ends at pooping, though. Sure, he poops like clockwork, but even still, I can’t force myself to go _that_ much.”  
   
Nanase is chuckling again, holding his hand over his mouth tucked inside his sweater sleeve, his shoulders shuddering gently.  
   
“Damn it, don’t laugh.” Sousuke grins. “At least you can take a shower without a tiny person sitting on your shower floor throwing bath toys at your shins like some angry drain goblin.”  
   
The laughter from the black-haired swimmer increases. He watches as Nanase wraps his arms around his abdomen and rocks forward as if laughing after so long causes great pain. As if? Hell, Sousuke prides himself on probably being right.  
   
“I’m serious, stop, it’s not funny.” Sousuke ends up snickering anyway, feeling his face split with laughter for the first time in a while, much like Nanase, except it feels good, _really_ good. There’s laughing at Yuki’s baby shows because they’re so damn cringe-worthy, then there’s genuine amusement shared with someone else, someone who just _gets_ his sense of humour. And he’d never expected it to be Nanase.  
   
“Sousuke,”  
   
There it is again, his given name uttered from Nanase’s lips. He focuses his attention on _Haru_ , on the sparkle of wonder reflected in his eyes from the moonlight streaking through the window. He knows where this is going, he’s known since Haru suggested they go to his room. They aren’t high school kids tied down by school regulations and scared to death of the future, not anymore. Instead, it’s Iwatobi itself. The small town filled with the old adage and ancient tongue of disasters blamed on those who _didn’t conform._ However, Sousuke knows whatever storms that will eventually hit Iwatobi will be a force of mother nature herself, not a magical consequence of his actions.  
   
It certainly doesn’t mean he’s not surprised, or scared, about this turn of events. If anything, he’s blasé exterior reflects nothing of the inner turmoil taking a joy ride inside him.  
   
“Thank you.”  
   
“Don’t worry about it.” Sousuke swallows, rising from the bed to cross the room to his overnight bag, and rummages through the contents to find his meagre belongings beneath all of Yuki’s stuff. He does his best to ignore the eyes watching him from the bed, those deep, azure eyes like the ocean on a dazzling summer day.  
   
 _Waxing poetry about eyes? I’m turning into Rin, dammit._  
  
He slides his jeans down and sheds his hoodie to pack into the overnight bag when he hears a gentle gasp from behind him. He locks up instantly, wondering how the hell he’s supposed to take that noise before Haru ploughs on.  
   
“You had surgery.” His soft voice breathes.  
   
“Yeah. A couple days after the final relay, I needed emergency surgery to reattach my ruptured rotator cuff. Rin was crying his heart out, luckily Ai and Momo were there to take care of him, otherwise he would’ve collapsed from dehydration crying that much.” Sousuke shrugs, relieved to hear Haru’s gasp hadn’t been a “what the fuck am I doing” kind of gasp.  
   
“Was it painful?”  
   
“Nah. High pain threshold, I guess. I was off painkillers after the hospital’s administered dose wore out. I was actually in far less pain post-surgery than I was before it, after it initially ruptured. I guess that says something when you wake up to medical grade staples holding your shoulder together.”  
   
Haru hums softly in thought whilst Sousuke steps into his pyjama bottoms and pulls them up to sit comfortably over his hips. “Your scars suit you.”  
   
“I’m glad you think that way, because I’m stuck with them.” Sousuke turns back round to Haru once he’s done changing to find Haru stripping off his sweater before working on his shorts. Sousuke diverts his gaze for a while, but the reflection in the mirror on the wall by the bed gives another angle for him to look at Haru with.  
   
“You know what I mean.” Haru sighs, sliding his sleeping shorts up his lean legs.  
   
The domesticity of the scene before him suddenly punches Sousuke in the guts. They’ve comfortably changed in front of each other, as if this is an everyday occurrence, whilst chatting on about things that should grind Sousuke’s gears something fierce. The baby monitor on Nanase’s bedside table is a jarring reminder he has a baby under his care and- regardless of whether or not Sousuke has considered settling down – this is a pretty life-like demo run.  
   
“Do you really not like them?”  
   
“My scars?”  
   
Haru nods.  
   
“I can’t see them, half the time.” He glances at his right shoulder, studying the circular pink scar tissue surrounding the long incision scar. He traces one of the botched keyhole surgery sites with his finger, then runs the length of the remains of the doctors giving up and just cutting through his thick muscle after their attempt at being delicate failed.  
   
“The long one looks like the mouth of a whale shark. And the two holes are its eyes.”  
   
“Don’t make things weird, Haru. I have to live with this.”  
   
“I’m serious. Come here.”  
   
Sousuke groans, but complies anyway, crossing the small room in two strides where he’s forced to sit on the bed whilst Nanase shuffles off to his desk for _something._ He’s starting to make the conclusions in his head, things he’d never associate with being in Haru’s possession, when the man turns back to him with a _fucking pen._  
   
“It’ll be easier if you lie on your stomach. Will that be comfortable for you?” Haru comes closer with the pen, pulling the cap off with a pop before climbing onto the bed with his knees.  
   
“Are you seriously going to doodle on me, man?” Sousuke grumbles as he lowers himself down so Haru can get to the scars on the back of his shoulder. He feels slender fingers pushing the strap of his tank top out of the way to expose his scars in all their glory, and wonders, briefly, what he’s let himself in for.  
   
“Your skin is the perfect colour for drawing on.”  
   
“So fucking weird.” Sousuke grunts as Haru settles his weight heavily on the small of his back, knocking the wind out of him for the sake of proving his annoyance. Aside from the blinding knowledge that Haru is sitting on him, Sousuke can’t say he’s necessarily uncomfortable with all this. It’s at this moment he truly recognises how much he’s changed from the angry, selfish high school kid in such a short amount of time. The only time he would’ve been caught dead alone with Haru was in a swimming pool, or backing him up against a vending machine – not a part of his life he was necessarily proud of.  
   
And yet, here he is, face down on Haru’s bed, alone together, in the middle of the night.  
   
 _Phrasing_.  
   
His muscles involuntarily twitch in response to the first scratch of Haru’s sharpie on his skin, the sound not unfamiliar to the quill of a feather scratching into parchment he’d heard numerous times on period drama films. He buries his face deeper in his arms cradled around his head, and relaxes against Haru’s solid weight on top of him.  
   
 

* * *

   
   
He’s unsure how much time Nanase spends drawing around his scars, but at some point, the flick of a pen started to move away from the back of his shoulder, to his entire back. His tank top is pushed up, bunched under his armpits and around his neck until Sousuke just pulls it the rest of the way off.Clearly, this is a canvas Haru is willing to expand onto, treating every inch as space to stain with ink regardless of the fact Sousuke needs to go out in public like this whilst everyone who sees him thinking he’s involved with the Yakuza.  
   
Such a small tightknit town like Iwatobi, tattoos are extremely rare since the only bastards who get tattoos are the Yakuza themselves. People already find him intimidating from his resting expression, so to top it off with all this ink on his back, regardless of it being temporary, isn’t going to help him fit into the community any easier.  
   
But, fuck it, it’s nice if even one person is comfortable enough touching him platonically, he can live with this. However, his abstinence in the face of Yuki’s forever curious eyes hasn’t gone without consequence, and being pressed into the mattress by Haru’s weight is not just distracting, it’s downright stimulating.  
   
Haru shifts back to get to the skin at the dip of his spine, which tears a moan of despair from Sousuke’s throat because this is _the_ most awkward scenario of his entire life and he gets to share it with _Nanase Haruka_ of all _fucking_ people. The noise he makes seems to draw Haru from his little world.  
   
“Shit,” He hears from on top of him.  
   
“Welcome back.” Sousuke grunts against his wrists. “You really zoned out there, huh?”  
   
“Yeah.” Haru goes silent as he shifts on top of the raven-haired life guard, pressing his weight against Sousuke’s backside as he clatters around with something on the bedside table. “Can I use this in my portfolio?”  
   
“Your what?” Sousuke finally turns his head to stare up at the man sitting on his ass. “Oh, you’re studying art, right?”  
   
Haru just nods, fumbling with his phone in his hands. “I won’t get your face in the shot, just your back.”  
   
“Hell, do what you want, it’s your creation after all. You’d better hope you didn’t draw any dicks on my back, though.”  
   
“I don’t know what a Whale Shark’s dick looks like, so I guess you lucked out there, Sousuke.”  
   
“Why does that surprise me?” He locks eyes with Haru for a split second, and notices the colouration high up on his cheekbones. Well, it looks like he’s not the only one completely and utterly mortified with themselves – or maybe he is alone in this since Sousuke’s the one with a raging boner pinned against the mattress. Every time Haru shifts against his ass to get a better angle of the art on his back, Sousuke sinks his teeth deeper into the flesh of his forearm in some attempt to calm himself down, to shock the arousal from his system.  
   
The shutter of the camera on Nanase’s phone is loud in the silence, the flash lighting up the room for a split second – just enough for Sousuke to make out the grain in the wood of Haru’s bed frame. If he wasn’t worried about letting loose the noises in the back of his throat by letting go of his mouthful of arm, he would’ve dug his nails into the wood and left a scoring of marks permanently etched into Nanase’s bed.  
   
“Look,” He flinches hard as the weight presses forward again, a hand settling on his good shoulder as a phone slides into view in front of him. It takes a moment for him to truly concentrate, since there’s a body flush against his back, but what greets him is… indescribable.  
   
An entire aquatic scene is drawn out on his back, filling out the space from shoulder to shoulder, and right down to the dip of his spine. It’s like his skin is the glass between the world and the water of an aquarium, like someone could reach forward and touch the fish so detailed and realistic swimming on his skin.  
   
He hadn’t even been aware Haru had used coloured sharpies until seeing the result in all its glory, but suddenly he can feel the pens resting in the dip of mattress against his side. The blue of the water bleeds around the fish coloured in sharp, bright tones as they swim around the ginormous whale shark, its eyes coloured black over the two circular scars, and mouth stretched wide around the longest one.  
   
Kelp and seaweed curls up his back, reaching for the bubbles floating up to the surface of the scene lost somewhere above his shoulders. Sousuke doesn’t know what to say, awestruck as he is beneath Haru’s weight.  
   
“I want this tattooed on my god damn body.” He finally breathes.  
   
“Don’t ask me to design your tattoo, don’t be one of those people.” Haru grumbles, settling his weight more firmly against Sousuke’s back as he swipes through the photos he’d taken. “It’ll survive a few washes; these permanent markers are pretty good. Don’t know about chlorinated pools, though.”  
   
“Technically, you’ve already designed it.” Sousuke feels Haru’s chin rest on the top of his head. “So, are all your drawings like this?”  
   
“Like what?”  
   
“Water-related.”  
   
He feels the chin on his head twist side to side.  
   
“No. I spend most of my time life-drawing people I see in public. It’s whatever motivates me to draw, honestly. I prefer sculpting, manipulating clay, carving stone. Sometimes, I mould my clay sculptures in plaster and cast in resin. One time, the resin got so hot during curing stage that the plaster shattered. But the resin flowed into the cracks and dried as a spider-web-…”  
   
Sousuke smiles as Haru continues to speak, watching the images on the phone in his face flick by until Haru finds what he was talking about, the busted resin sculpture of a life-sized female torso with spider-web cracks branching off from various areas of her body. It’s pretty damn cool looking, something even Sousuke’s unartistic monkey brain can appreciate.  
   
“How do you even know what tits look like?” Sousuke mumbles into his arms. He flinches at the pinch to his side, but he can hear Haru chuckle, feel the spasm of his diaphragm against his back. It doesn’t help his predicament.  
   
“Gou modelled for me.”  
   
“Oh God.” Sousuke instantly buries his face in the sheets, slamming Haru’s phone screen-down against the mattress. “Are you fucking kidding me, Nanase? She’s my best friend’s sister, and you made me stare at her tits!”  
   
“Relax, it’s not a life-cast. It’s just a visual representation of her torso.”  
   
“Stop talking!” Sousuke groans into his arms. “Stop _fucking_ talking, I swear to God.”  
   
“Oh, I have a photo of her grabbing-”  
   
Sousuke turns onto his back with a cry of indignation, covering his ears and squeezing his eyes shut to block out anymore of Haru’s whimsical tale of sculpting Gou’s breasts. “She’s basically my sister, you piece of shit, god damn it.”  
   
Haru, who had rolled off against the wall, is still chuckling in that almost silent way of his behind his wrist. He says something, but Sousuke hums loudly, deliberately in a single, long tone, to make sure he doesn’t hear him with his hands pressed over his ears, but he can’t help laughing at himself.  
   
Sousuke feels Haru’s weight fall back against his stomach as two thighs straddle his sides, and slender fingers grip his wrists. The muffled world comes back into startling clarity as Sousuke’s hands are forcefully removed from his ears and pinned back against the bed frame. It feels a bit upside down being pinned to the end of Haru’s bed, since there’s no pillows to cushion the wood digging into the tendons on the back of his hands, but the sensation is dwarfed by this new, compromising position. The view is something else, too.  
   
“You know, it’s rude to ignore someone in their own home.” Haru blows the hair from his eyes again and flashes a small, teasing smile.  
   
“It’s equally unacceptable showing your best friend’s sister’s sculpted tits to people, Haru.” Sousuke grunts, twisting a little under the other swimmer’s grip. “Get your bony ass of me, man.”  
   
“It doesn’t _look_ like you have a problem with it.”  
   
A chill sears down Sousuke’s spine as he absorbs the implications behind Haru’s quietly uttered tease. To avoid facing the issue head-on, Sousuke sighs and drops his head back against the sheets, his whole body thrumming with nerves and pent up need he’s been meaning to find the time to release, but with Yuki forever within sight…  
   
“Sorry.” Sousuke clears his throat awkwardly. “It’s been a while since I’ve…”  
   
“What?”  
   
“You know damn well what.” His brows drop in annoyance, his wrists still pinned to the wooden bed frame above his head, so he can’t reach out and strangle Nanase like he’d _really_ like to.  
   
Haru glances down over his shoulder to the awkward tenting in Sousuke’s sweatpants and produces this underwhelmed hum that Sousuke has no idea how to interpret, but in any event, feels insulted.  
   
“You must’ve really liked that sculpture-”  
   
“No! It was _you_ , you idiot!” Sousuke’s eyes widen in shock. He honestly hadn’t wanted to admit that, in fact, it may have been easier just to lie and say the sculpture really had done it for him, but the cat’s already out the bag and down the street by this point. He sighs bitterly when Haru’s grip slackens on his wrists, and he draws his hands down to rest on his stomach.  
   
“If you’d like to get off, I can- that came out wrong, that came out _very wrong._ ” Sousuke groans at himself and buries his face in a lump of blanket next to him, cursing the entire world and his very existence for being such an awkward _piece of shit_.  
   
“Wait, you’re embarrassed.” Haru’s deeply entrancing eyes squint in confusion. “Isn’t having an erection half the plan?”  
   
 _What the fuck is this guy talking about?_ Sousuke grimaces. It’s not a second later realisation dawns on him. His thoughts from earlier hadn’t entirely been out of context or born from some aching desire for release, but had been implied all along, right under his nose.  
   
The bed creaking is impossibly loud in the stillness of the darkened room. Even the musical numbers from the movie downstairs have ceased, and the house itself sits in complete silence. Nanase pushes his hands against Sousuke’s naked chest and lifts his hips to slide back and-  
   
He curses softly, curling fistfuls of blankets into his hands as Haru slides his hips forward again, dragging the area between his thighs over the length of Sousuke’s erection in one smooth motion. The draw of fabric and heat against him unfurls a blooming desire, nudging second thoughts and anxiety out from his brain and engulfing it in sweet pleasure as Haru continues his slow grind.  
   
“How-” Sousuke grunts, tilting his head back. “How far are you willing to…”  
   
“Depends, really.” He hears Haru swallow thickly, feels a hand slide down his chest and glance over the tip of his erection before cupping the head with a gentle squeeze. “Have you ever been topped before?”  
   
“Yes.” Sousuke sighs hard and shifts, crossing his arms over his eyes.  
   
“What? Really? Who?”  
   
“Momo’s big brother, Seijuro Mikoshiba. He came back for graduation and… I don’t know, man, we were drunk and the backseat of his car had plenty of room.”  
   
Haru bites his lip and thumbs the defined muscles of Sousuke’s chest. “I want to fuck you. I won’t be gentle with you. And I don’t use condoms. Do you still want to do this?”  
   
“As long as you’re clean, I don’t care.” He shrugs, pulling his arms back from his eyes. “You’ve got lube, right? Be as rough as you want, but if you’re hoping for it dry, I _will_ punch you in the scrot.”  
   
The freestyle swimmer just raises an eyebrow at him, reaches into a box on the bookshelf facing the end of his bed, and produces a slender bottle of lubricant.  
   
“I need to go get some other things, so prepare yourself whilst I’m gone.”


	4. Spit Soaked

When Nanase mentioned he wouldn’t go soft on Sousuke, he hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about what that meant exactly, besides a hard fucking in return. He didn’t know he’d unwittingly granted consent for Haru to do _this_ to him.  
   
The gag in his mouth is a refashioned neck tie – one from his days at Iwatobi High – tied around the back of his head and thoroughly saturated in spit between his teeth. If he glances up, he can see both his legs hooked over Nanase’s shoulders from where he’s essentially folded in half and stuffed full of Nanase’s fairly impressive cock.  
  
It’s _scary_ how calm the black haired beauty is, and to add to that, when he’d returned to his bedroom with his school tie in one hand and what appeared to be a vibrator in the other, Sousuke had completely given up all ideas that Nanase Haruka was some innocent kid who jerked violently to dolphin porn.  
   
This is the kinkiest sex he’s ever witnessed in his entire life, and he’s loath to admit it’s the best too.  
  
Haru’s cock is sliding in and out of him at a teeth rattling intensity, his hips pounding into his backside and reducing Sousuke’s strong, stubborn body to a pile of sweat and quivering thighs. Every thrust knocks the air from his lungs, his vision is swimming behind his eyelids, and if it wasn’t for the belt keeping his left hand tied to Nanase’s bedpost, he would’ve reached to him to hold on for dear life.  
   
Mercifully, Haru hadn’t tied up his right hand in case he hurt his shoulder, but the command to keep his hand in the same place had been firm. Sousuke had curled it into the sheets, and it’s been there ever since.  
   
It’s either flattering, or downright disturbing how fixated Haru is on him, Sousuke hasn’t decided yet. He feels soiled and used by him, his insides ravaged and outside restrained – he feels _amazing_ , _desired_ , and _appreciated_ in some fucked up sense of divinity. Sousuke’s body is being revered by Haru, and he briefly considers whether the freestyle swimmer has always wanted to do this to him, or if he’s just a means to sate urges. Urges Sousuke is positive aren’t casually suggested by fleeting college fucks.  
   
Something tells him Makoto would do a lot of things for Haru, but this is one thing he’d struggle to fulfil.  
   
“They can probably hear us, you know.” Haru pushes harder against Sousuke, pushes inbetween his legs and onto his chest to keep the man beneath him from inhaling fully. “The bed’s squeaking like crazy.”  
   
Sousuke wants to remind Haru this is _his_ bed and _his_ responsibility if it’s squeaking too much, so he can damn well explain the noises to his friends come morning and leave Sousuke the _hell_ out of it. However, the gag forced into his mouth muffles him, and any angry gestures are rendered futile by another of Haru’s kinks inflicted upon him. His wrist yanks against the belt around it, and his right shoulder has been humming with a dull ache ever since Haru decided to climb on his back like some attention starved cat.  
   
His toes curl in his socks, his lungs straining against Haru to get as much air as he can. Pleading moans rip from his throat, the lack of air and the sharp pain from his shoulder is dizzying, drawing black around his vision as Nanase’s cock forces him open and draws out the tension from his self-neglect. He’s so aroused he’s not sure he cares if the others can hear him. Yuki is asleep, he can’t hear anything over the monitor, can’t hear anything over Sousuke’s own pleasure and blood rushing to his ears drowning out the world around him.  
   
The wet slap of skin striking skin, the moisture soaking into the crevices of his stomach muscles, the sharp, short breaths Sousuke fights to take, the trembling choked back moans escaping Nanase’s throat as the entire length of his cock draws out and slams back in, Sousuke basks in it. His upper half feels totally neglected, however. Haru is focusing so much on fucking him, touching him, overwhelming all his senses beneath his waistline, and it’s good- _amazing_ – but his throat feels dry, unused.  
   
He wants someone to sit on his face, replace the gag in his mouth with their dick, and choke him with it.  
   
Sousuke’s eyes fly open, fixating on Haru’s brilliant blue as he adjusts to this new kinky- _thirsty_ – way of thinking. It’s probably the oxygen deprivation, or the cock trying to slam its way _through_ him, or even Haru’s intense gaze above flushed cheeks, but he wants more, he craves Haru’s method and wants to learn it in detail.  
   
Haru gazes back at him emotionlessly, however his eyebrows are pinched and his lips are parted around gentle groans of pleasure, offering a small insight into what he’s getting from their arrangement. _This_ is Nanase Haruka getting off. The pulse inside him isn’t his own, the one throbbing against his inner walls is violent, as if in a constant state of teetering on the edge. He wants to whimper Nanase’s name, but bargains down to whimpering in general, feeling the prickling of tears of pleasure and pain and panic turn into streaks running into his hairline.  
   
Nanase’s fists unfurl and slide up to Sousuke’s neck, one either side, thumbs poised over his thrumming arteries as he looks Sousuke in the eyes and puts in his silent request.  
   
A sob tears out from Sousuke’s throat as he battles with himself. He shouldn’t be doing this, he shouldn’t put his life in Nanase’s literal hands for the sake of sex – he shouldn’t run this risk. And yet, he can’t say no to him, he wants it, he’s quickly discovered he _enjoys_ handing over control and losing his god damn mind to Nanase.  
   
“Let me show you...” The words send tremors down Sousuke’s body. “… something you’ve never seen before.”  
   
Sousuke keens and deliberately defies the rules by sliding his free hand over one of Haru’s to claw recklessly at his skin as thumbs begin to push against the cords of his neck. Just beneath the loud, obnoxious squeaking of the bed, of skin slapping against skin, Sousuke can hear the whispered number counting from Nanase’s lips right before the shrill hiss of blood roaring in his ears drowns it all away.  
   
The smaller lad stops leaning all his weight on Sousuke, giving space for him to breathe.  
   
And so, his mouth sucks in large gulps of air around the gag between his teeth, lungful after lungful of earth shattering gasps flexing his ribcage, and yet it doesn’t reach his head. It _can’t._  
   
Somehow, in the first stages of oxygen deprivation, his brain offers the thought that Haru is pretty _fucking_ rude to do this to him whilst gagged, unable to express his displeasure of this kink – if he had any. Still, the chance to voice it would have been appreciated at least.  
   
Through the sway of his consciousness slowly slipping, and the deafening white-noise piercing from inside him, he barely catches the moment Haru throws his head back and gasps _something_ that’s too fast for Sousuke to translate.  
   
Sousuke’s vision is starting to swim, his mouth dry from sharp, trembling gasps, his body writhing, threatening to squirm right off Haru’s dick. He can’t help it. Sousuke doesn’t possess the trust in Haru to lay back and let Haru pinch his carotid arteries regardless of any bro-talk they’d shared prior to this arrangement. The pleasure _is_ dizzying, but any tightening his body is witnessing is out of panic, rather than mutual enjoyment.  
   
Finally, Haru either identifies the pleading look in Sousuke’s tear slicked eyes, or he’s gotten what he wanted from this, and releases Sousuke’s neck without warning.  
   
A full body arch takes Sousuke as oxygen rushes back into his brain, the hand thrown back against the bed clicks at the knuckles as he twists the sheets and yanks, screaming through his gag like some tortured beast. _Like?_ Gagged and bound to the bed, strangled, his ass filled and bruised – this isn’t _like_ torture at all, it simply _is_.  
   
Getting fucked against the back door of a rusted old Toyota with his breath steaming up the rain-slicked window is one thing, but this blows Sousuke’s frankly vanilla sense of kinky right out of the water. If he could bare to crane his neck and look, he’d see Haru slamming into him, excessive fluids drenching their point of connection, skin flushed a stinging red.  
   
The sudden rush of air is dizzying, the room blurs and fizzles in a cloud of colours projected by his oxygen starved brain and rushes his entire body with stifling heat. He slides his free hand down his side and touches Nanase’s thigh supporting his backside, damp with sweat, and sets his nails into the flesh.  
   
Haru throws his legs back over his shoulders and folds him again, forcing Sousuke’s knees against his chest to press the air out of him. Panic spikes, a flare of pain from his shoulder and Sousuke lets out this strangled cry as he’s stripped of whatever control he had left. It _hurts_ , he realises this, can’t avoid it, but the border between the two overwhelming sensations are blurring, causing his muscles to tighten and his tendons to flex against his skin as his body prepares for a mind-shattering conclusion.  
   
It’s times like these Sousuke is reminded how much he enjoys sex, but how hyperaware of it Sousuke is, unable to fully submerse himself in the act like many scenes of romantic novels and movies. He can’t just enjoy it, he _has_ to have some level of awareness, to make sure he doesn’t do something he’d later regret.  
   
It feels _different_ with Haru, however. The sheer level of filth Haru’s already bestowed upon him makes him feel like he could scream the Pokémon theme song at climax and still receive a celebratory blowjob after. Not that he would. Ever. He’s been mortified enough tonight. But, he could let go, maybe. Possibly.  
   
“Welcome back.” Sousuke feels the breath of Haru’s voice dust across his face, smelling like mint and subtle popcorn. “You were pretty out of it for a while.”  
   
Sousuke grunts, swallowing the saliva pooled at the back of his throat.  
   
“Screamed the house down, too.” Haru’s tongue makes a wet stripe along the seam of the tie pressed into Sousuke’s cheek. “This gag is pretty ineffective soaked in so much spit.”  
   
The knot digging into the back of Sousuke’s head unravels between Nanase’s deft fingers, the tie slides free of his lips, and falls to the floor with a damp thud. Sousuke works his jaw, tracing the indentations at the corners of his mouth left to right with his tongue.  
   
Lips slide down his sternum, a litter of kitten licks left in their wake as Haru curves as much as his athletic body will allow. He stops before his chin touches Sousuke’s dripping erection and glances between them blankly.  
   
“You didn’t come?”  
   
“No.” Sousuke’s voice is wrecked, his deep timber grounds out of his scream-torn throat as if decades aged. “Am I meant to?”  
   
“It helps, honestly.” Haru’s jaw clenches as he shifts forward to untie Sousuke’s wrist from the bed post when-  
   
There’s a split second where Haru’s movement taxes the weight they’ve been applying to Sousuke’s shoulder, shoves Haru’s cock into his prostate, and knocks the air out of him all at once. For a moment, he’s suspended between a multitude of sensations, yet his voice is the first to go.  
   
What exactly comes out of his mouth is something untranslatable. A distressed shout of pleasure and pain as he throws his free arms around Haru and embraces his entire body against him graces the silence of the household, and he doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to feel guilty for it.  
   
As he levels out from the blinding white-out of pleasure, he can hear the trembling gasps from the athletic swimmer on top of him flying past his ear. Nanase barely gives Sousuke a split second to evaluate just what in the fuck happened, before he’s being mounted like some heat stricken dog.  
   
With Haru finally at the correct angle, his prostate takes one hell of a pounding. Sousuke arches away from the bed as he curls blanket between his fingers and squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t need to see his legs in the air, especially since his hips are rising steadily into the bone shaking thrusts Haru is dishing out.  
   
“Just- come already.” Nanase growls as he slips down and sinks his teeth into the flesh of Sousuke’s left pec.  
   
“Ha-” He tries to reply, tries to throw a snide remark at Nanase, but he’s so overcome with pleasure, he can’t bear to think that clearly. He’s finally starting to understand the art of losing himself as his orgasm descends, throwing his back into an arch and grazing the tip of his cock against Nanase’s hard stomach muscles.  
   
His come flicks up against the pale skin of Haru’s torso and drips off in globs onto Sousuke. He can feel his entire system seize in pleasure, gasping sobs tearing from his chest and filling the silent house with noise. The rhythmic clenching of his insides does it in for Haru too, drawing a low grunt of pleasure as the freestyle swimmer comes and pulls out to paint the backs of Sousuke’s thighs with semen.  
   
He’s almost thankful Haru hadn’t come inside, but as soon as the thought occurs to him, a wet sensation trickles out from his thoroughly abused hole and slips into his ass-crack.  
   
“What the fuck, Nanase.” Sousuke rumbles out breathlessly.  
   
“I told you, I don’t use condoms. It’s like swimming in a wet-suit.” Haru flicks his hair from his eyes and sits back on his heels. “It dulls sensations of touch. I can’t feel the water, or you, if there’s something between it and me.”  
   
“Well, _it_ needs a tissue or something.”  
   
Haru leans back without breaking eye contact and pulls a few sheets from the tissue box on his bedside table. It’s dark, but Sousuke can clearly make out the lightly coloured ocean waves around the border of the tissue. He groans.  
   
“For someone who hasn’t even jerked off for weeks, you were pretty stubborn.”  
   
Sousuke squirms a little, his hips and legs clicking audibly as he retrieves his limbs from squeezing around Haru’s lithe hips.  
   
“And _you_ nutted inside. Twice. I think we’re even.” He attempts to sit up, to make his way to the bathroom and clean up the evidence regardless of the likelihood of one _or more_ of the Iwatobi gang listening at the door. Nagisa, in particular, comes to mind.  
   
However, the world swims as he pushes himself upright, and his body slumps back against the bed with a loud thump, his flailing hand strikes the bedframe in the same motion.  
   
“Holy shit.” He groans and turns onto his side towards the wall, his body lurching in sensitivity as he finally closes his legs. The ache goes bone-deep. The scream of blood rushing to his head is once again deafening, even the creak of the bed as Haru shifts closer is dulled by the piercing hiss.  
   
“Go to sleep.” Haru’s slender fingers slip down his arm to his hip, gently massaging the jut of bone. “I’ll clean up.”  
   
His serene voice is a hush in his ear as Sousuke closes his eyes and gives into his exhaustion.  
   
 

* * *

  
   
It’s a trying task cleaning both Yamazaki Sousuke, and the bed beneath him, when said man is so deeply entrenched in sleep, he does little more than _continue to breathe_ during the clean-up process. He watches the damp cloth slide across Yamazaki’s skin, leaving a sheen of water to cling to the round surface of his ass and the fine hairs covering him.  
   
The art on his back has been damaged in a few places, the sweat and friction marring the drawing and staining the sheets with a multitude of colours. He’ll repair it if Yamazaki asks.  
   
Haru collects the face towel and saliva sodden tie previously thrown to the floor, and heads to the bathroom to dump them in the laundry hamper.  
   
“Are you okay?”  
   
The tremor of surprise isn’t subtle, nor is the gasp which tears into his chest. Makoto stands in the bathroom doorway, hands on both sides of the frame to block Haru in and _force_ the conversation, rather than leaving him with an out.  
   
“Sorry,” Makoto smiles endearingly. “I thought you heard me coming up stairs.”  
  
“I didn’t.” Haru huffs, dropping the laundry hamper lid. “I’m fine, in any case.”  
   
“Well, just to warn you rather than finding out in the morning, but _everyone_ heard you two… er-…”  
   
“I don’t care.”  
   
Makoto flushes, releasing the doorframe to rub at his messy hair. “We were skyping with Rin at the time.”  
   
“I want to go to bed-”  
   
“He knows, Haru.” Makoto bites his lip hard, wrestling the words into existence. “Yuki woke up- Rin _knows_ about Yuki.”  
   
Haru’s eyes widen. Had they _really_ been so loud they’d woken Yuki? He doesn’t remember hearing anything over the baby monitor, and he’d been pretty cognizant throughout fucking Yamazaki into the mattress, unlike Yamazaki himself. He supposes he should be proud of reducing the man to such a mess, but the thought of Yamazaki writhing on his bed will only lead to an awkward situation for both him and Makoto.  
   
Whilst Makoto’s revelation doesn’t much affect him, it certainly affects the man currently passed out in his bed, totally ignorant to the situation.  
   
“How?” Is all he can think to say.  
   
“The baby monitor.”  
   
Haru clasps a hand over his eyes and groans.  
   
“I mixed up the handsets- you had the one meant for Yuki. I’m sorry, Haru, I didn’t-”  
   
“You could’ve lied about where the crying was coming from. Rin’s gullible as hell.”  
   
“You don’t understand.” Makoto pleads. “We didn’t know Yuki was awake. He didn’t _cry._ He just woke up and crawled into the living room- a-and before we realised it, Rin had seen Yuki and-” The hulking backstroke swimmer sags his wide shoulders with a heavy sigh. “You know how Yuki looks exactly like Sousuke?”  
   
“Shit.” Haru slides the hand from his eyes to his mouth and stares at Makoto, mind lost in the endless ways Yamazaki is going to murder each and every last one of them.  
   
 _“He doesn’t know.”_  
  
 _“I’d prefer to tell him myself at some point, so…”_  
  
It’s going to be a slow and torturous death, no doubt.  
   
“It gets worse.”  
   
“How.”  
   
Makoto is _squirming_. “He refuses to believe Yuki is Sousuke’s brother. He thinks he’s Sousuke’s son. Oh- and _Gou_ also knows-”  
   
“Makoto!”  
   
“Rin wanted to be sure it wasn’t Gou’s kid, I’m sorry!”  
   
“He’s going to flip.” Haru sinks down to sit on the rim of his bathtub. “Yamazaki is going to rain down on us like a tsunami and _none_ of us are strong enough to swim against it.”  
   
“Yeah.” Makoto laughs anxiously, his voice cracking as he slumps against the doorframe. “Gou might also be sitting in your living room. With Yuki. Who’s also still awake.”  
   
“It’s 1 in the morning, get her out of here!” Haru snaps.  
   
“She wants to talk to Sousuke- and- well- you too, really, since…” Makoto chuckles again. “Nagisa turned the baby monitor back on to check whether you two were done. Something about gags not being as effective soaked in spit?”  
   
The sheer mortification which floods Haru’s senses threatens to pour out of him in a lengthy, agonised scream. Instead, he pushes his face into his hands and sighs, loudly. It doesn’t even occur to him that this conversation would be less awkward if he put some clothes on, but Makoto hasn’t brought it up yet.  
   
“Sousuke’s phone is downstairs. It’s been blowing up with texts and phone calls from Rin – roaming charges be damned, apparently.” Makoto finally enters the bathroom fully, and sits on the closed toilet seat to adopt a similar slump of defeat to Haru. “I’m really sorry, Haru. It’s a bit of a…”  
   
“Shit-storm.” Haru grumbles into his palms. “It’s not your fault, anyway. A series of events rolled into one big turd and it’s heading straight for the fan.”  
   
The tawny haired swimmer is nervously playing with a lock of hair, probably considering the circumstances of his own death at Yamazaki’s hands too.  
   
“It’ll be alright.” Haru finally tries to comfort Makoto, regardless of the fact it’s the biggest lie he’s told this year. The man smiles anxiously and partakes in eye-contact.  
   
“Is Sousuke okay, by the way?” Makoto flushes even darker, Haru can see it in the unlit bathroom. He just shrugs in response and breathes in deeply through his nose to yawn it back out again. If Yamazaki is fine now, he won’t be later so his current state doesn’t mean shit, really.  
   
“How do you feel?”  
   
“I’m not having this conversation whilst you’re sat on my toilet.” Haru scowls. “I’m fine, I’ve already said.”  
   
“Alright.” Makoto just laughs off his curt reply and stands up. He gestures with open hands, and Haru rolls his eyes to the floor. “Better?”  
   
“I was bored and Yamazaki was looking for release. It doesn’t mean anything.”  
   
“Doesn’t _mean_ anything? Haru-chan, let me remind you what you said at work yesterday-”  
   
“ _Please_ , don’t.”  
   
Makoto clears his throat, clearly ignoring Haru’s request. “To quote; “ _I really like guys with responsibilities-_ ”  
   
“Spider-man-”  
   
“ _-like single dads. I think anyone like that would be welcome.”_ Not _Spider-man_. You said it, Haru. And not 5 minutes later, you run into Sousuke outside the café.” Makoto folds his arms, the signal Haru recognises as Makoto’s rare bouts of stubbornness. “Given, Yuki is his little brother, but that doesn’t make him any less of a responsibility.”  
   
Haru hunches his shoulders and grunts. “Whatever.”  
   
“No, not _whatever_. The fact you had sex with Sousuke to begin with is testament to how strongly you feel about this sort of thing. You two used to argue whenever you were within earshot of each other.”  
   
“It’s not that.”  
   
“So, then, what is it?”  
   
Haru bites his lips between his teeth, furrowing his delicate brows and throwing a glare to the far corner of the bathroom. This isn’t something he’s happy answering, not at all, so he gets to his feet and exits the bathroom into the dark upstairs hallway.  
   
“I know it’s difficult for you to express yourself-”  
   
“Don’t bring that up.” He turns swiftly, finger sharp against Makoto’s chest who’s followed him into the hallway. “It’s got nothing to do with it.”  
   
“I’m sorry.” Makoto immediately backs down, stepping away from the finger jabbed into his chest and rubbing the spot beneath his shirt. “It’s just you don’t usually act like this. Or at least don’t tell me about- I’m sorry-”  
   
“I wanted to fuck him, Makoto.” Haru suddenly blurts – and he tries, really tries, to stop himself, but the words are pouring out of him for some reason, maybe to finally get Makoto off his back about this, maybe because he’s sick of harbouring it. “When I saw Yamazaki for the first time since high-school, I _thought_ I wanted to throw him up the wall and fuck him _blind_.”  
   
Makoto’s mouth works like a landed mackerel, stunned to silence.  
   
“I thought what I wanted was just sex, but… Now I’m finished with him, I- I don’t know. This tension in my chest won’t go away. I just- it won’t stop.”  
   
“Haru.”  
   
Haru squeezes his eyes shut tight and slides his hands over his face. “Forget it. Leave Yamazaki to sleep, I’ll face Gou instead.”  
   
“Okay, but uh… before you do-” Makoto smiles sheepishly and gestures downwards between them. Haru follows it, until it registers.  
   
“Right. Clothes first.”  
   
“Much appreciated.”


	5. Baths and Hoodie Strings

What kind of evil bastard _doesn’t have curtains_ in a south face window? What kind of sick, loveless shit-for-brain goes their entire life waking up to piercing sunlight slicing into their cornea each and every god damn morning?  
   
Apparently, Nanase Haruka.  
   
Sousuke turns away from the window, rolling to the other side of the small bed to push his face into one of Nanase’s pillows and pray for eternal damnation on its owner. The agony of blinding light carving through his cranium has done its job at least, giving his body the jolt it needs to pull himself up and slump back against headboard.  
   
There certainly isn’t any delay on recalling last night’s activities, especially since the sharp ache from sitting on his ass reverberates up his spine and pools into the constant throbbing of his shoulder. The bruise on his left wrist is an angry stain of reds and purples, and as he turns it, it cracks loudly in the silent bedroom. He presses his bruised hand to his right shoulder and closes his eyes to feel for any sort of hang over, for _something_ he can blame for his behaviour last night, and his readiness to submit to Nanase Haruka of all people.  
   
He finds nothing.  
   
A delicious shudder racks through him as the memories come to him unbidden. Haru, with his lithe, slender body, had managed to completely engulf _him_ , almost twice the swimmer’s size. Sousuke admits he’d panicked at points since he’d never handed over complete control like that before, but overall he’d enjoyed it, hadn’t wanted it to stop…  
   
Sousuke glances around the empty room, setting his teeth into his bottom lip. It’s early enough that the house is still in complete silence, and he certainly can’t hear anything over the baby monitor, not that he’s surprised since Yuki is such a quiet kid in the first place. However, it’s either squirm around in Nanase’s bed waiting for the rest of the household to wake up, or make a little noise to relieve himself.  
   
He chooses the latter and slides his naked body to the edge of the bed where he stands to step into his sweatpants. As he straightens, he can feel the horrid sensation of Nanase’s come ooze from his ass which, honestly, feels strangely fine even after Nanase’s ferocity the night prior. His hips, the small of his back, and his shoulder are the sources of his grievances, yet given the position he was pinned into, he’s unsurprised.  
   
The bedroom door has been left open a crack, and as Sousuke steps through it, ducking his head to clear the small frame, he glances down the stretch of dark corridor leading to the stairs. Not a single sound meets him, besides the distant bird chorus drifting in through the rafters of the old house.  
   
His sense of direction is that of a dead mongoose – and whilst he’s not entirely sure what a mongoose is, it’s a saying he’s heard Rin say about him plenty of times. This time, however, he finds the bathroom just fine, since it’s immediately opposite Haru’s bedroom, and he opens the door and ducks his head to watch as it silently shuts behind him.  
   
The bathroom is warm, but it takes him a moment to realise he’s very much walked in on someone taking a hot bath and- before he can start sputtering apologies and escape – recognises Nanase in the tub.  
   
“How long have you been in there?” Sousuke grumbles.  
   
“About half an hour.” Haru reclines, stretching his legs to click audibly under the steaming water. “If you want to use the toilet, you’re going to have to wait for another hour.”  
   
“And if you don’t want me to piss in your bath water, you’ll look away.” Sousuke doesn’t care. The guy’s been inside his ass, the time for embarrassment is over. Hell, he just wants to take a piss and crawl back into bed until Yuki starts to miss him, or Nanase kicks him out, whichever comes first.  
   
Nanase sighs and rolls his head against the lip of the tub to stare boredly at the dolphin toy floating as if in mid tail kick by his feet. It’s a silent “go ahead”, and Sousuke’s too tense to get bashful, so he gets on with it.  
   
It’s as he pushes the flush he realises the hand reached over the side of the bath, and the deft fingers pinching the fabric of his sweats hanging on his hips. He sends Nanase a disgruntled look, wondering if this is a new form of harassment for using the toilet in his presence.  
   
“Take them off.” The solemn college student demands.  
   
“They won’t fit you. Find your own damn clothes.” Sousuke shifts back, but the fingers have better grip than he initially thought, and the fabric slides along the drawstrings, loosening enough to uncover his Adonis belt and the base of his dick. He’d be humiliated if Nanase hadn’t seen it all before, both last night and in swimming pool changing rooms.  
   
It suddenly occurs to Sousuke it isn’t the sweat pants Nanase is after.  
   
As the grey fabric is coaxed further down his thighs, Sousuke watches as Nanase leans forward over the side of the tub and yanks on his fistful of sweat pants to bring Sousuke closer.  
   
“In.” Haru breathes against his flaccid cock.  
   
Sousuke debates shoving the demanding piece of shit’s head under water and holding him there until the bubbles stop, but, knowing Haru, it’d be too perfect a death for him. He’d enjoy it if anything. Nanase releases his grip on Sousuke’s sweat pants, letting them fall to the bath mat at Sousuke’s feet.  
   
Sousuke glances down, then into the water of the bathtub where he can see Haru is already half hard from- _from what_? Sousuke doesn’t want to believe watching him piss has Haru half chub, but he leaves the thought there, he doesn’t need to know. Ever.  
   
He steps out of his sweatpants and into the tub, feels the water envelope his legs, then his knees and thighs as he settles on his haunches in front of Nanase. The water comes up to his ribs, the excess water spilling into the overflow pipe at the other end of the tub and glugging down the ancient pipes. Haru is watching him, everything beneath his eyes besides the tops of his knees submerged beneath the water, and even then, the steam obscures what’s left of him.  
   
The dolphin toy is bumping against Sousuke’s side, so he ushers it forward in the water between them and distracts himself with the goofy way it bobs along the surface. The water fetishist tilts his head back to retrieve his mouth from the water whilst nodding for Sousuke to come closer. “Straddle me.” He solicits.  
   
“Please would be nice.” Sousuke does it anyway, sliding forward once Haru lowers his legs, straightening them out to give Sousuke’s significantly bigger thighs room to sit astride him. He knows where this is going and follows willingly, pressing his palms against the slick tile behind Nanase’s head as hands slide up his body.  
   
Nanase- _Haru­_ doesn’t respond to his goading, his slender fingers graze Sousuke’s ribs to his chest muscles and squeezes the prominent set of pecs eye level with him.  
   
Sousuke refuses to admit it, but Haru’s fondling feels so damn good. His hands leave the tiles and curl into Haru’s damp hair to yank him face-first into his chest muscles.  
   
“Your _pecs,_ Yamazaki.” Haru moans into them before sinking his teeth into flushed skin of one of Sousuke’s nipples. Sousuke jolts over Haru’s lap and instinctively thrusts forward as his cock gives an almighty twitch in interest. As he sinks back, he feels the head of Haru’s hard dick press against his lax asshole and the knuckles of a hand fisted around its girth to hold it in place.  
   
“You like my tits?” Sousuke breathes out, hands disappearing beneath the water’s surface to pull his ass-cheeks apart and offer his hole to the impatient man between his thighs.  
   
“Yeah.” Haru’s spare hand keeps squeezing Sousuke’s right pec, pulling the entire thing in his hand and pinching his nipple between his thumb and index finger. “This extra weight you’ve put on since high school makes you look less like an awkward llama still growing into its legs, and more like…” Haru trails off, not from the look of utter disgust from the man straddling him, but in thought. “… more like a grizzly bear.”  
   
Sousuke groans and tucks his hands back under his butt-cheeks to pull himself open again. “Just put it in already, Nanase.”  
   
“The fact you’re not shaving either adds to the aesthetic.”  
   
“Whatev-” Sousuke cuts off, feeling the solid girth of Haru’s dick pierce his hole and stretch it out until he’s weaving his fingers back into Haru’s hair and pulling his face into his chest again. Haru takes it as a sign of pain, apparently, and idles Sousuke’s hips with gentle pressure.  
   
But Sousuke, whilst feeling the sting of insufficient lubrication since the water does _very little_ compared to actual lube, revels in the heat of Haru’s cock filling him oh-so-slowly. The burn is delicious, curling up his spine and muffling the ache of sore muscles and fucked-stiff joints like some sex-conjured Epsom salts.  
   
“Move whenever,” Haru pants against his pecs, sliding his fingers back over the muscles to squeeze them both at the same time and abuse the flesh until it begins to swell. “Fuck, Sousuke, these _tits_.”  
   
“They’re real.” Sousuke chuckles brokenly before swallowing the lump in his throat and curling his hips forward over Haru’s cock. The ridge beneath the head catches against his rim, pulling the flesh of his asshole before Sousuke sits back and slides down to the balls. Sousuke’s shivering by the time he gets to the root, his muscles tensed in pleasure and cock twitching between his thighs. It’s just like him to joke in tense situations since he can’t and won’t deal with feelings and emotions – but during sex, he can also distract himself with pleasure. And since Haru’s gaze over his pecs is animalistic with want, he’s more than happy with distracting them both from unanswered questions of why and how.  
   
“I’m going to fuck these and come on your face before today is over.” Nanase rolls his hips up to meet the downward slide Sousuke is on, and quakes as his balls tighten at the mere thought. Sousuke exhales sharply and tilts Haru’s head back by his hair to open his mouth and shove his tongue between his teeth. It’s spur of the moment as Sousuke bounces on Haru’s cock, meeting Haru’s tongue, sliding their slick over one another as their lips break and melt together.  
   
It’s their first kiss. Sousuke doubts it’ll be their last, but it’s the first time they’ve been able to kiss each other on the mouth rather than biting and licking various parts of their bodies. Sousuke’s back dips, his hips curling inwards as he pushes all the way down, then pushes his ass out and bows his back to lift up again. He repeats the motion, the strokes firm and concise until he drops his hips steadily and grinds, seeking his prostate curiously.  
   
“Ah- _Sousuke­._ ” Haru rocks forward and sinks his teeth into Sousuke’s pec, enveloping a nipple in his mouth as his arms squeeze around Sousuke’s waist. He bites hard, hold Sousuke steady who writhes and gasps and curses, his fingers curling around Haru’s jawline to pull him back into an open-mouthed kiss.  
   
There isn’t any space to really ride Haru like he wants to, to split his legs open so Haru can enjoy the show, but even with that sort of space, the agitated water acts as nature’s own censor bar.  
   
Pushing that, frankly, too cognizant though far into the back, Sousuke releases Haru’s lips with a loud break and reaches between them to stroke himself, his other hand curled around the slim column of Haru’s neck. He has half a mind to return the favour from last night, but, given he has no experience in choking someone out, he leaves that sort of behaviour to Haru, and sets his nails into the skin instead.  
  
“That’s it.” Haru chokes into Sousuke’s cleavage, his hands set like talons into the meat of Sousuke’s ass to help keep his movements strong and sharp. “Yeah- drop back harder.”  
   
Sousuke can only manage a few more thrusts, his breaths loud and desperate, projected up to the ceiling, before he’s stuttering to a halt and crying out with Haru’s cock jammed against his prostate and his insides clenched and fluttering violently. His come seeps to the surface and clings to Haru’s chest whilst the freestyle swimmer holds him steady, watching Sousuke’s entire body quake with aftershocks and flush from his cheeks to his chest.  
   
“Ah- oh shit- _Haru_.” The tension leaves Sousuke’s body in a fluid trickle, but he pushes on, raising and dropping his hips with his face tucked into Haru’s neck and breath sharp and shallow. “Hurry up- I-” He can barely speak, his insides are raw with sensitivity, and his prostate seems to be the target for every damn thrust. He pulls back from Haru’s neck and licks his lips in full view of those cerulean eyes.  
   
“You like making big grizzly bears beg for your come, right?” Sousuke rocks his head back, dropping his hips harder on Haru’s cock once he adjusts to how sensitive he is post-orgasm. “Ah- I want it, Haru. I want more come in my ass.”  
   
“St- stop, Sousuke,” Haru gasps, his spine arching against the slope of the tub. “I come a lot- f-first thing-” He can’t talk anymore, his entire body shudders under the force sweeping over him. He nails tear into the skin of Sousuke’s hips as he shoves his cock as deep as he can seat it inside the ex-butterfly swimmer and fills him.  
   
Sousuke has a firm grip of Haru’s shoulders and basks in both his afterglow, and the spurts of heat filling him, which continue for a good minute before Haru chokes out moan and slumps back into the water. Sousuke steadies himself against Haru and kneels up to slide off Haru’s cock, which flops limply back beneath the surface.  
   
“Where do you think you’re going?”  
   
Sousuke _was_ about to climb out the bath make use of the shower cubicle in the corner of the bathroom, but since Haru apparently requires his company a little longer, he simply remains on his knees astride the smaller man.  
   
“Turn around, hands against the wall. Stick your ass out.”  
   
He obliges, if only to enjoy himself a little longer.  
   
   
 

* * *

  
   
   
Fucked over the taps of Haru’s bathtub after being rimmed clean of Haru’s come felt a little backwards now they were finished, since Sousuke still had to clean out the final deposit he’d left in the shower whilst Haru headed downstairs to wake up the rest of the household and make breakfast for his guests.  
   
Slipping on his spare set of clothes, his comfy light blue hoodie and navy blue undershirt on top of what he would deem as skinny jeans, but sagged comfortably in the right places, he stepped into his house slippers, shouldered his overnight bag and headed downstairs.  
   
“Sou-sou!” The greeting is screamed in his direction the moment his foot meets the bottom of the stairs, and suddenly there’s a head of blonde hair underneath his chin.  
   
“Hey,” Sousuke begins, before Rei is forcefully removing Nagisa from his personal space and shooing him off in another direction. “Morning, Rei.”  
   
“Good morning, Sousuke-senpai.” The fellow butterfly swimmer bows formally and pushes his glasses back up his nose. Sousuke usually isn’t any good at pinning the mood, but Rei appears flustered if his flushed cheeks and stress-combed hair is any indication. He almost forgets that the entire household almost certainly heard him getting destroyed by Haru last night- maybe even this morning too.  
   
“I hope Yuki wasn’t any trouble last night.” He evades the subject smoothly as, speak of the devil, Yuki comes bumbling over in his half run, half falling mode of toddling around the place. He’d already begun walking quite recently, so to see his excited staggering brings a grin to his face.  
   
“N-no, not any trouble at all! Quite a curious lad, in fact!”  
   
“Rei.” Nagisa groans from the other side of the room.  
   
Sousuke ignores them to kneel on the ground and catch Yuki in his arms. Of course, Yuki wants a big bear hug – the continued “bear” theme is not lost on Sousuke – and so collapses against Sousuke’s chest in a fit of giggles, yanking on his hoodie for leverage.  
   
“Hey, squirt.” He coos softly in a tone that sounds _alien_ coming from his mouth. “How’re you doing this morning?”  
   
Yuki tilts his head back, digging his chin into Sousuke’s chest and beaming up at him with every last ounce of happiness Sousuke’s sure he can muster. Sousuke grins back, knowing full well his brother’s answer regardless of words.  
   
“I missed you too.” He straightens up, hauling Yuki up into his arms with a significant grunt of effort as his shoulder gives an almighty twinge in protest, however, he ignores it in favour of cuddling his favourite person in the world. He’s aware the Iwatobi bunch are staring, even if they’re trying so very hard to be subtle about it – barring Nanase who doesn’t turn away from his place at the stove where the pungent stench of fish is resonating.  
   
He’s familiar with this smell. It greets him half way down the hill to work every morning, and to finally discover the source of it – to see it _isn’t_ some hidden fish shack selling mackerel for cheap – it’s like meeting an incredibly disappointing celebrity, and a stinky one, at that.  
   
He turns his attention back to his little brother and notices the look of curiosity sparkling in his wide, teal, eyes as he seems to recognise the smell too. As he’s done a hundred times before, he watches Yuki, studying, trying to find all the discrepancies between them which tell of their two different fathers. And as he’s concluded every damn time, Yuki’s too young, his features too close to that of a generic-looking baby for Sousuke to identify anything.  
   
They’ve both inherited dark hair, teal eyes, and tanned skin from their mother, and whilst Sousuke had inherited his sheer size from his father – and then some – he wonders what Yuki has inherited from _his_ father. Besides some serious abandonment issues for when he’s old enough to understand the full situation.  
   
Their mother is _short_ , no taller than 4ft 10, whilst Sousuke’s father reaches 6ft. Supposedly, puberty took that as a challenge and Sousuke found himself taller than his father at 16. And then, as a cherry on top, he’d continued to grow – _still is,_ according to his physiotherapist – measuring in at 6ft 3. The Iwatobi crew had petered out at 18, leaving Nagisa the shortest of the bunch and Makoto the tallest. He isn’t looking to take the crown from Makoto, since he doesn’t consider himself “part of the gang” yet, but even he has to crane his neck just to meet Sousuke’s eyes.  
   
“Good morning, Sousuke-kun.”  
   
Sousuke tries to greet him back, but Yuki decides to speak for him, burbling out something _close_ to “Mako” as he waves his little hands towards him.  
   
 _The sooner he starts talking, the sooner I don’t have to._ Sousuke can see their kinship already, Yuki being the loud, yet considerate one, whilst Sousuke hangs back, watching on solemnly, fondly. He’s always had a mild… _issue_ in social situations. Doctors had told his mother all about social anxiety disorders, he’d heard the discussion passed over his head sat in his mother’s lap in a sterile paediatric psychologist’s office. He’d listened as the kind lady behind the desk had explained in great detail his issues with making friends and the temper tantrums.  
   
Looking at Yuki, his easy-going temperament, his lively babbling, his arms outstretched to a man who was a complete stranger not 24 hours ago. He’s no older than his parents had been by the time he was Yuki’s age, but he’ll be damned if he’ll let Yuki be another example of shitty parenting.  
   
“Sousuke-kun?”  
   
Sousuke glances up from his brother and focuses on the fond, concerned smile Makoto is directing up to him. Makoto lets out a small chuckle and opens his arms to Yuki, who has been straining towards the backstroke swimmer for a cuddle quite avidly. Enough to strain Sousuke’s shoulder to the point he’s quite glad Yuki shrugs him off.  
   
“Sorry, you say something?”  
   
“I was just asking if Yuki can eat solid foods yet? He’s got some teeth in there.” Makoto winces an eye shut as he peers playfully at Yuki, who’s managed to wedge half his hand in his mouth since he’s probably got another tooth coming through now that they’re on the subject.  
   
“Oh, yeah. I mean, he still has milk before bed, it’s just a part of the routine – he’s been eating solids for a while now… apparently.” Sousuke scratches at his neck and glances over Makoto’s shoulder to Haru silently preparing breakfast in the kitchen. “He’s never had mackerel before, though.”  
   
He spots the moment Haru almost drops the spatula in his hand tending to the mackerel on the skillet. Just above the hiss and spit of the fish cooking away, he can hear Haru utter _“unbelievable”_ under his breath.  
   
“I’m sure Haru will be more than willing to let Yuki try.” Makoto sighs softly and rests his lips on Yuki’s head, since the little one is cuddled to his chest comfortably.  
   
Sousuke steals himself for a moment. If he could kid himself, he’d be convinced Makoto had fathered Yuki from the sheer family _vibe_ he’s getting from the sight alone. He wonders if _this_ is the reason why the Iwatobi group has been staring at him in such awe around Yuki. It’s likely to blame for the disbelief that Yuki is _just_ his little brother, not his son.  
   
But, taking in the sight of Makoto and Yuki so comfortably snuggled together– it plays off something. Something that makes him want to drop to his knee and pledge himself to Makoto for as long as he lives so he can always cherish this wonderful scene. He won’t, of course, not since he and Haru seem to have something going on, and he’s too emotionally constipated to even _think_ too much about it, let alone do it.  
   
But he _considers,_ boy does he consider it. Yuki gazing up at Makoto like a steaming bowl of Wakodo. Or _literally anything_ Sousuke finds himself eating. Basically food in general. This gaze he directs up at Makoto like he could love nothing more. He doesn’t feel jealous, hell, he knows the gentle kindness of Tachibana is far more appealing than Sousuke even at his best – it’s _mutual_. If anything, he’s proud of Yuki realising so young that Tachibana Makoto is a soft, selfless type who deserves good things.  
   
Before he realises it, he’s leaning down into Makoto’s chest to plant a kiss on his little brother’s temple. Yuki smacks his lips back at him and manages to twirl one of his big brother’s hoodie strings in his fist to keep him close enough to play with his nose. Sousuke can’t help but grin, which leads to Yuki poking at his straight teeth and burbling something about them Sousuke can’t quite understand. It sounds like a personal issue regardless, so he assumes it’s about his teething problem.  
   
“You gotta let me go, man.” He chuckles instead and tilts his head to blow a raspberry against the exposed skin on the back of Yuki’s head. Yuki squeals in delight, burying his laughter in Makoto’s chest as he scrunches fistfuls of Makoto’s t-shirt in his tiny hands. “Are you gonna release me or am I gonna have to bring out the big guns?”  
   
“Bii-guu!” Yuki squirms, already anticipating his big brother’s next move. Makoto does an amazing job of keeping hold of the kid, since Sousuke’s almost certain he’d have dropped him by now.  
   
“Alright, you asked for it.” Sousuke announces as he rolls up the sleeves of his hoodie and pounces.  
   
Yuki’s laughter reaches the far corners of the house as Sousuke tickles his brother all over until the tight grip around his hoodie string loosens. It’s a bit late for that, since the string has pulled enough it’s only coming out once side of his hood, but he’s never used the strings before and hadn’t planned to either. He stops the tickle monster before Yuki can get too hysterical and straightens his clothing as he glances at Makoto.  
   
It’s surprising, but the gentle giant is flushed a deep red behind his brilliant smile and tawny locks. Sousuke doesn’t know what to make of it, besides trying to keep Yuki from vibrating straight out of his arms had been a trying task. Other than that, he draws a blank and chooses to ignore it.  
   
“Ah, sorry about that.” Sousuke scratches at his neck again as he pulls his hoodie string the rest of the way out. The fact he tends to let go of his emotional guard with Yuki freaks some people out. It’d scared him for a while, and he’d _tried_ to remain the same cool and complacent ( _emotionally constipated_ ) guy he’d always been, but that seemed so unnecessarily cruel to such a young kid.  
   
“Don’t apologise.” Makoto utters softly as he bounces Yuki further up against his chest and rests his cheek on the boy’s head. “Just let me know when you want him back. Otherwise I’ll keep him.”  
   
“I might hold you to that, Makoto.” Sousuke doesn’t realise his tone’s dropped until the tinge of red returns to Makoto’s cheeks with a vengeance. He spots Haru glance over from the kitchen and levels him with a pair of stern cerulean eyes, ones which pierce the air around them and express _very clearly_ his discontent with the scene before him.  
   
Sousuke’s still stood close to Makoto, his hand on Yuki’s back, his head ducked to watch his little brother play with Makoto’s t-shirt sleeve – a _very_ homely, familial scene he’s sure Haru doesn’t enjoy the implications of.  
   
He takes a step back from Makoto and crosses the partition into the comfortably cluttered kitchen. Haru is by himself amidst the mist of freshly cooked rice and fish and the bowls lining the counter. He pulls the sliding door shut behind him and approaches Haru chopping cabbage on his cutting board with a knife Sousuke is _sure_ is more for show than actual real purpose – _especially_ for cabbage.  
   
He sidles up behind him and manages to lean his hands on the counter around Haru before resting his chin on his shoulder. He watches the knife glide through the leaves, moving closer to the heart until the cabbage is just a pile of sliced greenery on the chopping board.  
   
“What do you want?” Haru mumbles irritably after a prolonged silence.  
   
“I wanted to thank you for last night, actually.” Sousuke sighs, shifting enough to press his forehead into the crook of Haru’s neck and shoulder. “But, since you’re acting like a butt, I thought I’d keep my mouth shut instead.”  
   
“You should’ve listened to yourself, then.” The freestyle swimmer pulls a leek over to his chopping board and proceeds to dice it, for some reason.  
   
“Yeah.” Sousuke smiles at Haru’s attitude, it stinks, as usual, but it’s starting to grow on him. “I’ll get Yuki and I out of your hair after breakfast, promise.”  
   
“No.” Haru sighs and drops his knife to slide his hand through Sousuke’s raven hair. “You’re staying the weekend - I don’t care what you say.”  
   
“I’ll have to go home and pick up more supplies for Yuki. And my studying stuff.” He turns his mouth to nip gently at the skin of Haru’s shoulder. “But, yeah, I can do that.”  
   
“We take turns sleeping in my bed, so…”  
   
Sousuke lifts his gaze to stare at the wall in front of him, his brows furrowing in concern.  
   
“Rei and Nagisa have my bed tonight, so it’ll be us on the futons.”  
   
“That’s fine. I think I owe it to Yuki to stick close tonight, anyway.”  
   
Haru hums softly in acknowledgement. “We can split the futons for a big mattress and share the blankets I have in the closet somewhere. Then you can pick between Makoto and I who you want to cuddle up to more.”  
   
“Nanase,” Sousuke sighs stiffly as he pulls up from leaning over Haru at the counter. “You’re seriously doing this?”  
   
“Doing what.” Haru grouches.  
   
““Never mind.” Sousuke thinks better of breaching this sort of territory with the freestyle swimmer, since he’s a stubborn as a mule when it comes to expressing one’s feelings. Not that Sousuke is any different, but Sousuke is _very_ aware of his total lack of social qualities. Nanase seems almost too comfortable behind his metaphoric walls. “Do you want any help in here?”  
   
“No. I’m better off cooking alone.”  
   
Sousuke can see Haru’s concrete walls sliding into place, barring him from indulging himself further with the shorter man, so he lets out a steady sigh, straightens up from Haru’s shoulder and escorts himself back into the living area.  
   
Yuki comes stumbling over as soon as he’s within sight.  
   
At least someone’s happy to see him today.


	6. Cherry Blossoms and Red Eye Flights

“Ah! Sou-sou!”  
   
Sousuke glances over his shoulder from Haru’s front door step as he slides his feet into his sneakers. He cranes his head up to meet Nagisa’s pink eyes since Yuki seems determined to climb the mountain that is his big brother’s back and stick his toy dinosaur into the top of his skull like a flag of victory.  
   
“You don’t mind a little company on your trip out, do you?” Nagisa enquires shyly. Sousuke would have fallen for it, if he hadn’t known full well what Nagisa was _really_ like.  
   
 _He’s up to something_ , Sousuke thinks to himself, yet he can’t say he’s not curious about the blonde breaststroke swimmer’s intentions. He shakes his head as he sits Yuki down next to him to lace up his tiny shoes too, in case Yuki decides being carried everywhere like a spoilt prince isn’t for him. It’d already taken 10 minutes to chase the kid down just to get him dressed.  
   
“Cool! I get to see Sou-sou’s place, too?”  
   
“Yeah. You’re not bringing Rei along?”  
   
Nagisa shakes his head, his bouncy hair waving back and forth. “He’s going to help Mako and Haru deep clean Saba Koharu later today. I can’t help since last time I ripped one of the doilies.”  
   
“Saba Koharu?” Sousuke frowns up from Yuki’s shoes and takes a moment to comprehend _what_ he’s just heard. “Is _that_ what Nanase called his café? Why am I not surprised?”  
   
“You laugh, but, the saba nitsuke dumplings are _super good._ ” Nagisa tilts his head down to Yuki and beams brightly, hands clasped against his bent legs. “Speaking of which, Yu-yu really enjoyed the saba shioyaki at breakfast, didn’t he?”  
   
Sousuke nods as he gets to his feet. He moves to pick Yuki up, but the squirt waves him off and steadily stands from the entrance step so he can walk by himself. Sousuke shrugs and leans down to take his hand instead.  
   
“I don’t know what Nanase would’ve done if Yuki hadn’t liked it. He was staring so hard at the kid I do wonder if Yuki faked it.”  
   
Nagisa chuckles, sliding on his loafers and following them out the door.  
   
Iwatobi has been graced with a beautiful spring morning. The sun is climbing in the clear blue sky, and cherry blossoms are drifting along the sea air, curling up from the ground and dusting along the stairs as they ascend them slowly.  
   
When Yuki tries to reach out for the handrail with his other hand and can’t quite reach, his tiny fingers are met with Nagisa’s as the college student takes hold to stabilise the squirt’s balance. It’s rather jarring how perfectly Yuki can hold Nagisa’s hand, when he struggles to get a grip around just two of Sousuke’s fingers. Sousuke wonders if Yuki feared him at first, feared his height, his size in general, his stern gaze and stiff jaw. He scared people _older_ than him, he scared kids at work, he’s pretty sure he scared Coach Sasabe on first impression too.  
   
Why wouldn’t Yuki be scared too?  
   
Maybe, he knew right away who this large man with chronic resting bitch face was? Maybe, when his teary-eyed grandmother handed him over to this 6ft 3 monster who had to duck his head at all times in his tiny grandmother’s house, he knew he would be protected. Maybe, he could sense this sentient walking-attitude-problem would give him a better chance at life than anyone else.  
   
Maybe Yuki took anything he could get like some dog staring down the needle of a high-kill shelter, who knows? Sousuke just knows he’s a difficult person to like, love, live with, and struggles to believe anyone would want to subject themselves to him willingly. Not that Yuki could pack his diaper bag and leave, of course, but-  
   
“Mako told us the story of how Yu-yu came to be in your care.” Nagisa suddenly chimes in through his roiling anxiety. Sousuke blinks himself to attention and glances over to the blonde walking slowly to keep pace with the squirt between them. “Actually, we kind of interrogated him until he spilled the tea.”  
   
“So you know he’s only my half-brother.”  
   
“You say it like it’s a dirty secret or something, but it’s not.” Nagisa ducks his head down and screws the sleeve of his outstretched arm in his fist anxiously. “It’s scandalous, no doubt about it, but you make up for it.”  
   
“What do you mean?” Sousuke frowns.  
   
“Your parents were my age when they had you- Rei did the math.” He hesitates, taking a quick glance to check in case he’s crossing any boundaries. “That’s pretty scary to think about. I bet they messed up a lot along the way, and I’m sure you still feel the repercussions of your childhood. But, because of that, you’ve learnt from bad example, right?”  
   
“Right.” Sousuke drags the word out, urging Nagisa to continue.  
   
“Which means, you’ll be the _best_ big brother in the whole wide world – hands down. Not even Mako or Kisumi could do better than you.” The blonde giggles and waves his finger up at Sousuke. “You won’t even have to _try_ since Yu-yu already thinks the world of you.”  
   
“I _did_ love my parents too at his age, I’m sure. There’s still time for him to realise the truth.”  
   
“Oh my _god,_ Sou-sou, I’d slap you if I could reach-” Nagisa pouts dramatically, slouching towards him with his cheeks puffed. “One day, you’re going to realise how dumb you sound and how smart Hazuki Nagisa was, _then_ you’ll be grovelling! I’m talking hands and knees, bowed down, face in the _dirt_ grovelling.”  
  
“You wish.” Sousuke chuckles. Yuki takes this moment to let go of his hand to pick up the full flower of a blossom laying on the ground before them. He feels like he should tell Yuki not to pick up something from the ground, but since he’d watched the blossom fall from the tree as they reached the top of the previous set of stairs, he’ll ignore it just this once.  
   
“I guess all parents are in a constant state of self-doubt and second-guessing, and any that aren’t are usually the ones causing the most harm.” Nagisa tucks a lock of hair behind his ear as he watches Yuki turn the flower over in his tiny palms and study it in great-detail as if he’d never seen anything like it.  
   
 _How sheltered was this kid back in Tokyo?_  
  
“Yeah,” Sousuke sighs instead. “Kids raising kids is either a disaster, or they grow up fast enough to avoid disaster. I’m not sure where I’d class myself yet.”  
   
“I think you’re gonna be just fine.” Nagisa smiles brightly. “Have you had any contact with your parents since you brought Yuki home?”  
   
Sousuke shakes his head and instinctively reaches to pat-down his pocket when he realises he hasn’t looked at his phone since yesterday evening. He’s probably left it on charge in Nanase’s living room on the extension cord filled with everyone’s phone chargers. But, since Yuki is with him, and the only reason anyone would call him would be in regards to Yuki, he’s not too fussed.  
   
 _Rin could’ve texted me. I’ll check it once I’m back._  
   
“I don’t want to talk to them. They’ll only try to sugar-coat the situation and warp the truth. Yuki doesn’t need that sort of crap lingering in his life.” Sousuke crouches to Yuki with his blossom and smiles kindly. “That’s a pretty flower, squirt.”  
   
Yuki burbles something thoughtfully and looks up to his brother.  
   
“Ah, Yu-yu!” Nagisa kneels beside him and clasps his hands in his excitement. “You want to keep that flower right?”  
   
Yuki tilts his head as he stares at his flower and nods once firmly.  
   
“Can I take it for a second? I’ll show you what you can do with super pretty flowers like this one.” Nagisa extends his hand, and for a second, it looks like Yuki won’t hand it over out of fear of losing it, or it getting damaged, but eventually he places the delicate pastel pink flower into Nagisa’s open palm and watches in deep interest.  
   
“You _always_ gotta check if they have any allergies before you do this- Uncle Rei was itching for _days_ the first time I did this to him.” The perky blonde smiles brightly up at Sousuke and reaches a hand to tuck the raven hair behind his ear. “I mean, I put a poisonous flower behind his ear, but it was pretty while it lasted.”  
   
Sousuke tilts his head so Nagisa can curl his fingers behind his ear and fully tuck his hair away, and watches on as the much shorter man lifts the small flower and slides the long stalk behind the helix of his ear. Yuki appears confused at first, before a bright smile breaks out across his chubby cheeks and a squeal of glee almost knocks Sousuke onto his ass. He catches Yuki in his arms and wraps him up tight, grinning merrily at the sheer delight such a tiny flower behind his ear brings to his baby brother.  
   
“I think he likes it.” Sousuke chuckles, sweeping his hand over Yuki’s head to brush the thick black hair from his eyes.  
   
“I think he wants to cover you with flowers now.” Nagisa tilts his head thoughtfully, giving Sousuke a sidelong smile and a wink. “You don’t cover someone you don’t like with flowers.”  
   
“Unless it’s their funeral.”  
   
“Sou-sou!” Nagisa huffs and slaps him around the back of the head.  
   
 

* * *

  
   
   
Sousuke doesn’t recall the absence of his phone until late that evening. He reaches into his hoodie pocket lacking anything better to do whilst spooning Yuki’s dinner to his mouth before remembering he’d misplaced his phone at some point. Glancing around the immediate area of Nanase’s living room, he spots the extension cord of phone chargers with one or two devices at the end of their cables, but none of them appear to be Sousuke’s.  
   
His bulky protective teal phone case and, ironically, smashed screen aren’t amongst those on the floor, and the only phone he can see with a whale sticker on the back is Makoto’s orca sticker, not Sousuke’s whale shark. It’s troubling, he _should_ be concerned, instead, he’s just so damned relaxed about everything.  
   
Actively trying to hide from the world – yes, he admits he _was_ hiding – had been stressful. Now the Iwatobi brood are aware of Yuki, it’s a load off his back – and more so, given they’re so willing to hang out and play with Yuki to the point Sousuke feels bad for not being more attentive.  
   
Meanwhile, Sousuke can’t spot his phone anywhere, and he’s dead certain he didn’t take it to bed with him last night, since he put it on charge on the extension cord in the living room. Ever since then, he hasn’t seen his phone at least once.  
   
Nagisa and Rei glance up from their text books – or what Sousuke quickly realises is the case with _Rei,_ at least, since Nagisa has a manga of some sorts wedged into the pages of _his_ textbook.  
   
“Is something the matter, Sousuke-senpai?” Rei calls from the other end of the Kotatsu.  
   
“You guys haven’t seen my phone lying around, have you?” He asks, patting himself down again with one hand since the other is holding Yuki’s spoon steady.  
  
“Ah-”  
   
“Nope!” Nagisa interrupts. “You should be more careful with your phone, Sou-chan!”  
   
“I thought I was.” Sousuke sighs and turns his attention back to his tiny brother eagerly awaiting another mouthful of food. “This is a long shot, but, Yuki, you don’t know what happened to my phone do you?”  
   
Yuki’s look of eagerness towards the spoon drifts into a sense of thoughtfulness, considering the question thoroughly as if he actually understood Sousuke. Sousuke can only dream, of course, but wouldn’t _that_ be nice. After a moment, Yuki puts his fists together at the thumbs and makes a separating motion, mimicking something being snapped down the middle, like a stick or something. He makes a raspberry with his mouth at the same time, which does nothing to clear up Sousuke’s confusion.  
   
“Boke.” Yuki chirps.  
   
“Boke?” Sousuke tilts his head, observes the separation of Yuki’s fists again. Realisation sweeps through him suddenly as his sleep-deprived brain catches up with him. “Oh, it _broke_?”  
   
Yuki nods merrily and leans forward to gobble up his fluffy rice and mackerel with a loud smack of his lips.  
   
“You’re not talking about the time you dropped my phone down the apartment stairs, are you?”  
   
He shakes his head and points towards the extension cord visible through the gap between Rei and Nagisa. He prattles off some baby talk Sousuke has no chance in translating, but the gesture forces him to notice the looks of dread, and in Rei’s case guilt, on the couple’s faces before they’re disappearing behind their textbooks.  
   
Sousuke raises an apprehensive eyebrow at the pair.  
   
“Alright. Do you know where it went after it was broken?” It’s a stretch, Yuki’s less than 2 years old, he’s not fully grasped communication yet, but Sousuke has this faith he hasn’t been talking to some baby brick wall this whole time.  
   
Yuki appears to prove Sousuke wrong by staring back at him as if in deep contemplation of life itself and the reasons behind it. His big teal eyes observe, collect data for his developing brain to process and produce responses in turn.  
   
Sousuke isn’t sure he’s trying to churn out an answer, or a turd.  
   
“Yamazaki.”  
   
He glances over Yuki’s head towards the hallway leading to the stairs and front door to meet Nanase’s piercing stare directly.  
   
“Come here.”  
   
“I’m feeding Yuki, can’t this wait?”  
   
“Don’t worry, Sou-chan! I can take over!” Before he can really respond, Nagisa is taking the bowl and spoon off him and shoving him towards Nanase. “I’m sure your phone will turn up – just go have fun with Haru-chan for now!”  
   
To simply save his eardrums from bursting, he evades Nagisa’s head rubbing against his arm and makes his way over to Nanase waiting in the doorway. Rei can’t bear to look at him, and cranes even towards the textbook in his lap.  
   
 _What the hell is going on here?_  
  
Nanase turns before Sousuke can voice his thoughts, and leads him down the hall to what appears to be the small utility room Nanase washes his clothes in. He ducks under a drying t-shirt hung over the doorway and observes as the door is slid shut behind him. He suspects he’s in here for explicit reasons, considering the promise Nanase had made earlier about sticking his dick in Sousuke’s cleavage by the end of the day is only a few short hours away from dying with the sunlight.  
   
“If this is about a tit-fuck-”  
   
“Ah- Sousuke-kun-”  
   
“Jesus-!” He spins on his heel to the man sat on top of what appears to be an old broken dryer too heavy for Nanase to dispose of tucked into the corner of the room. There’s a curtain next to the tawny haired man, discoloured over time and damp, since it looks to be the old wash room from the house’s original construction. “Fuck, Makoto. What are you hiding for?”  
   
“Yamazaki.” Sousuke should feel annoyed as Nanase’s fingers grasp his chin to regain his focus, but he can’t force himself to keep up this pretence of constant exasperation with the Iwatobi’s. It’s too much effort regardless of whether or not it’s actually warranted.  
   
His continued lack of knowledge and suspicion over his phone tells him it’s warranted.  
   
“Something happened last night whilst you and I were upstairs.”  
   
“It was totally accidental. But if you’re going to blame anyone for it _please_ blame me, since I suggested the idea in the first place.” Makoto’s voice resonates from the corner of the small room behind him. Nanase’s fingers are still holding his chin, so Sousuke glances as far as he can to the left to acknowledge the backstroke swimmer. “I never intended to cause any harm.”  
  
“What’s going on? Is this about what Yuki was referring to?”  
   
“It’s about Yuki in general.” Nanase replies firmly. “You don’t have to hide him anymore.”  
   
“What…” Sousuke’s brows drop in concern. He hears the metal thump of Makoto sliding off the old dryer, and footsteps moving closer. He tries to comprehend Nanase’s words, even as a pair of hands slide around his stomach and pull him for a backwards one-way hug.  
   
“We skyped Rin early in the night after you and Haru left. We were sure to be quiet, but… Something woke Yuki up and…”  
   
“Rin knows?” Sousuke suddenly feels he’s lose his patience. He wrestles himself out from between Nanase and Makoto and turns on them with the little tolerance he has left. “Rin knows about Yuki and you didn’t think to tell me sooner?”  
   
“I’m sorry, Sousuke-kun.” Tachibana drops his head in a truly repentant bow. “We were hoping to cover for you, but since Yuki looks so much like you, Rin came to his own conclusions pretty quickly.”  
   
“He thinks Yuki is your son.”  
   
“How in the hell?” Sousuke snaps. “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to break this to Rin for months, and within 24 hours of you dipshits finding out, you manage to fuck everything up. _And then some._ ”  
   
“It was an honest accident.” Nanase huffs. “If anything, we did you a favour.”  
   
“Are you _fucking kidding me_?” He feels like punching something, someone, and Haru’s indifferent attitude _isn’t helping_ matters. “You didn’t do me a _fucking_ favour! It was up to me to break this to him, not you! It’s not just about Yuki, it’s about the effect he’s going to have on Rin’s dreams for me. It’s not his fault, and I wouldn’t want to change anything, but raising him rules out any possibility of returning to competitive swimming because I can’t afford my rehabilitation anymore.”  
   
Makoto shares a look with Nanase next to him, before casting his gaze into the corner of the room again.  
   
“I can’t afford the surgeries I need to completely repair my shoulder – the first surgery I’m _still_ paying for – because Yuki comes first and I’m _not_ going to let him live a shitty life because of the circumstances surrounding his birth, I won’t let that happen.”  
   
“Yamazaki.” Nanase utters softly, raising his hand to try to keep Sousuke from continuing, but _dammit,_ Sousuke’s isn’t done yet.  
   
“And I’m just going to throw it out there and say you guys hid my phone because Rin isn’t the type to sit idly by and accept this kind of shit and called me several thousand times and you guys tried to cover your asses. So, I suggest you hand it over so that I can deal with this.”  
   
“Sousuke-kun.”  
   
“Don’t “Sousuke-kun” me!” He growls. “I thought I could trust you with the truth! I asked you not to tell Rin, and yet you still took the risk of skyping him with my brother in the next room! You hid my phone to hide the truth and _lied_ to me!”  
   
“Sousuke.”  
   
He instantly shuts his mouth as ice streaks through his veins.  
   
That voice.  
   
His stiff body feels like it could shatter any moment as he turns to look over his shoulder towards the tattered, yellowed curtain sliding back along the rail. Crimson hair is the first thing he sees. Sharp predatory eyes focus solely on him, striking stakes into his feet to keep him pinned to the spot regardless of his flight instincts.  
   
“I think it’s about time we talked.”


End file.
